Australia complete emphatic victory

Scorecard: Kent v Australia

The glass-half-fullers will view the final stanza of Australia’s Ashes warm-up against county competition cellar dweller Kent as an optimum hit-out for the visitors’ bowlers in terms of energy expended and results gained.

The inevitable nay-sayers will wonder how an attack led by Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris might fare against a resurgent England when, for a couple of trying hours this afternoon, they found themselves unable to scythe through a team that sits bottom place of the bottom division.

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Captain Clarke was all smiles after the win // Getty Images

In mitigation, Kent’s batsmen had nothing to forsake other than spare time on a grey Sunday afternoon when Michael Clarke declared Australia’s innings closed at their overnight score of 4-322 and set the home side a fanciful 550 in a full day’s batting.

And the Canterbury pitch that had proved slow if true on the opening days had flattened out to offer nothing to the bowlers, which meant the slightest error in line or length gave batsmen licence to swing through the line or deftly pick the many gaps on an expansive, fast outfield.

As a consequence, Kent set about their run-a-ball target without the timidity and self-consciousness that marked their first innings and gave a fleeting impression they might even take on the 90-over assignment.

But the loss of three key wickets (including first innings top scorer and former England Test batsman Rob Key) inside the first 21 overs meant it was left to opener Daniel Bell-Drummond to keep the pipe dream alight for the small but loyal band of Kent fans at Spitfire Park.

In the end, a total of 294 from less than 60 overs against a Test-standard attack looks fairly commendable, but the final margin of 225 runs tells the real story of a whitewash.

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Bell-Drummond, a 21-year-old whose pedigree stretching back to his first century at age seven in the under-10s has him marked as a future England player, began the day staring at a pair after he was trapped flush lbw in Mitchell Johnson’s opening over of the first innings.

But having avoided that dreaded fate with a sweetly timed punch off Ryan Harris’s second delivery of the innings, Bell-Drummond blossomed into an array of strokes and showed a particular liking for Harris’s usually economical seamers and Fawad Ahmed’s mixed-bag of leg spin.

An England representative at under-15, under-17 and under-19 level – where he opened in his junior ‘Test’ debut alongside England’s current whiz kid, Joe Root – Bell-Drummond is a player of undoubted talent which he displayed throughout his 164-minute stay today.

He reached his half-century off a more-than-tidy 63 balls but then lifted the tempo even further as Fawad leaked boundaries, clubbing three fours and a six from the leg-spinner’s sixth over and then a further 17 from Fawad’s next over to reach 100 from a sparkling 92 deliveries.

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Bell-Drummond celebrates an impressive century on the final day // Getty Images

However, when he was pinned lbw by a ball from Ryan Harris that skidded through as a light spattering of rain dusted Spitfire and led to play being was suspended when it escalated to drizzle, a game that has been one-way traffic from the outset finally stalled to a halt.

With Australia’s luxurious team bus idling behind the players pavilion and Kent’s batsmen operating at marginally fewer revs out in the middle, the resumption of play with the loss of half an hour but none of the requisite overs was greeted with lukewarm enthusiasm by all but the most ardent fan.

Ben Harmison, the batting all-rounder younger brother of Ashes hero (and occasionally villain) Steve, produced none of his sibling’s aggression or propensity for waywardness in a sedate, occasionally soporific innings of 31 that stretched almost two and half hours.

If his stubbornness frustrated the tourists, it was but a hint of the exasperation that Fawad must have felt as he – having been banished from the attack with figures of 1-59 from seven overs – watched Steve Smith’s far more flukey wrist spin claim a couple of gift wickets.

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Smith finished with 3-54 in the second innings // Getty Images

A chest high full toss to Adam Ball was hit as if catching practice to Peter Siddle on the deep square leg rope, and then a half-tracker that coaxed a rare heave from Harmison lobbed as far as Harris at mid-wicket.

The back end of Kent’s batting then enjoyed some free-swinging time against Smith and Fawad in a brief after-tea session that warmed the hearts and hands of those loyal fans who stayed to the end.

New South Wales-born county journeyman Mitch Claydon dined out on his former countrymen with a bludgeoning 53 from 27 balls that included eight fours and two sixes and a brutal 21 from one Smith over.

But when he holed out to cover the end soon followed, and Australia’s final winning margin was 255 runs in a largely blemish-free start to their tour.

Within half an hour, they were loaded aboard their bus and on the M2 headed towards Chelmsford where a day free of training looms before their final pre-Ashes warm-up game begins against Essex on Wednesday.

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