{"id":649948,"date":"2026-06-21T03:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T03:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/649948\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T03:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T03:30:11","slug":"county-championship-max-holden-rescues-middlesex-at-kent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/649948\/","title":{"rendered":"County Championship: Max Holden rescues Middlesex at Kent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rothesay County Championship, Division Two, St Lawrence Ground, Canterbury (day two)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kent 416: Benjamin 70; Morgan 5-104<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Middlesex 319-6: Holden 143*, Gohar 62*; Milnes 2-51<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Middlesex (5 pts) trail Kent (6 pts) by 97 runs<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/cricket\/scorecard\/e-233533\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Match scorecard<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Max Holden hit an unbeaten 143 as Middlesex reached 319-6 on day two of their County Championship game against Kent at Canterbury, to trail by 97 at stumps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Holden&#8217;s unbroken 160-run partnership with Zafar Gohar helped Middlesex avoid the follow-on and Kent were left to rue a number of missed chances in the field, having reduced the visitors to 159-6 at one stage. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Zafar was 62 not out at the close.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Earlier Seb Morgan took career-best figures of 5-104 as Kent were bowled out for 416.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The hosts began the second day on 356-7 and Tom Helm took the first wicket, getting Matt Milnes caught behind for 18, before Morgan took his fifth when Keith Dudgeon swatted him to Leus du Plooy for 30.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That left Kent 14 short of a fourth bonus point and the chase for that went to the final ball of the 110th over. After four dots Matt Parkinson scrambled to the striker&#8217;s end, narrowly avoiding a run out. He then hit the sixth ball of Gohar&#8217;s over for six over midwicket, to loud cheers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Parkinson finally went for a handy 13 when he edged Toby Roland-Jones to Helm, leaving Hasan Mahmud unbeaten on 22 on his home debut.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Milnes was unlucky not to get a wicket in his first over, and he did get Sam Robson lbw for one in his second.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ben Geddes was his next victim, edging him to Grant Stewart at fourth slip and he nearly got a third before lunch when Stewart could not hang on to a one-handed chance from Holden.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Middlesex were on 32-2 at lunch and lost du Plooy for 14 in the second over after it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hasan went round the wicket to the left-hander, who ill-advisedly left his third legitimately delivery and lost his off stump.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hasan then sent Caleb Falconer&#8217;s off stump flying for nine and then produced a bouncer that Joe Cracknell appeared to edge into his helmet. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ekansh Singh misjudged the chance at short leg and Cracknell and Holden put together Middlesex&#8217;s first serious partnership.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Holden clubbed Parkinson for six to reach 50 and although he was then put down by Dawkins at short leg, Parkinson removed Cracknell at the end of the same over when he had him caught by Dudgeon at first slip.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Morgan fell in near identical fashion for six, leaving Middlesex on 180-6 at tea, but Holden and Zafar swung the momentum completely in the final session.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Holden steered Hasan through long leg for four to reach three figures. Batting looked significantly easier and when a rare chance did arise, when Zafar misjudged Dudgeon, Ekansh hesitated at square leg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A wide from Parkinson saw Middlesex to a second batting point shortly before stumps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Report by ECB Reporters&#8217; Network, supported by Rothesay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rothesay County Championship, Division Two, St Lawrence Ground, Canterbury (day two) Kent 416: Benjamin 70; Morgan 5-104 Middlesex&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-649948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}