Dave Allen: 20 Years Of Kent At The Ageas Bowl

We have played T20s against Kent in every year since the start in 2003 winning 14 matches and losing 16 with one tie. The first meeting was at Beckenham where Andrew Symonds with 96* from 37 balls secured an easy victory for the home side. At the The Ageas Bowl in 2004 Shane Watson’s 97* and Mascarenhas 3-20 took us to an easy victory by 64 runs and the following year we won by five wickets with a last ball single (Pothas 58*, Greg Lamb 4-28) as Michael Carberry top-scored with 56 – for Kent.

In 2006 & 2007 we were still playing Kent just once in the season, 2006 away while in 2007 at the Rose Bowl, we tied on 153 each with the new England supremo Rob Key making 59, and Mascarenhas taking 3-17); Chris Benham top-scored with 45 (Simon Cook 3-30). By 2008 we were playing ten matches, double the first year, and met Kent home-and-away for the first time, winning easily at the Rose Bowl, with fifties for Carberry and Lumb taking Hampshire to 197-6, still their highest home total v Kent. In 2009, Hampshire recovered somewhat from 42-6 to reach 131-7 but Darren Stevens 62* took Kent from 30-3 to a seven-wicket victory. Hampshire were on top in two low-scoring matches in 2010, at the Rose Bowl winning on 117-5 with just two balls remaining. Later that year Hampshire won the trophy for the first time, two years after Kent had contested but lost the first-ever Final at the Rose Bowl.

In 2011, Hampshire won easily, having dismissed Kent for 72 (Mascarenhas 3-29) in reply to our 141-6 (McKenzie 48, van Jaarsveld 3-20); it remains the third lowest total by any side against Hampshire. In 2012 Kent won a thriller by just three runs, after 14 men reached double figures but top-score was just 46* by Kent’s Sam Northeast.

We won one each on the opposition’s ground in 2013. At home in 2013 we needed 18 from 14 balls with seven wickets in hand but lost by 8 runs (McKenzie 47) while in 2014, Robert Key made 89 but for Hampshire, Carberry hit 73 in a winning score of 171-7 in a year when we did the double over Kent (Briggs 3-28). Kent chased down 178-5 to win in 2015 despite 66 from Vince but we defended 158-8 and victory by nine runs the following year, while in 2017 Kent won by just five runs from 159-6 (Bell-Drummond 62, Afridi 4-26).

In 2018 we were set just 140 to win but reduced to 20-5, we struggled to 88 all out (Stoinis 4-17) our second lowest T20 against any side and in 2019 our 145-5 (Vince 51) wasn’t quite enough, after Alex Blake hit 57* from 38 balls; Kent won by two wickets with one ball to spare. In the re-arranged 2020 ‘pandemic’ season the opening game at Canterbury was rained off while back at the The Ageas Bowl Fuller (50*) and Vince (48) took Hampshire to 182-6 but that was no problem for Crawley who enjoyed the The Ageas Bowl that year and hit 108* from 54 balls as Kent won by eight wickets. Last year we lost the opener at Canterbury in our only meeting and Kent went on to win the trophy.