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Eight wickets for Tamil Nadu’s K Vignesh, along with strong performances from pacers L Vignesh and Aswin Crist sent Baroda stumbling to an innings defeat inside three days in Raipur. That meant Tamil Nadu walked away with seven points and their second win this season.Tamil Nadu needed only 52 overs on day three to take 10 Baroda wickets. Resuming on 44 without loss, Baroda lost opener Dhiren Mistry in the third over to foretell another batting collapse for them (they were dismissed on 93 in the first innings) – they slipped from 59 without loss to 89 for 5 in the space of 17 overs. Much of the damage was orchestrated by Aushik Srinivas and K Vignesh as they shared seven wickets between them. Srinivas’ 4 for 22 with a shrewd economy rate of 1.59 complemented the two pacers as Baroda were dismissed for 200 before tea.Soaeb Tai, coming in at 105 for six, hit a quick-fire 69 off 60 balls, but it proved to be a scant consolation. Tai put on 61 for the ninth wicket with tailender Murtuja Vahora, before Srinivas took the last two wickets off consecutive deliveries to clinch victory.At the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, Siddarth Kaul’s career-best 6 for 27 put Punjab in sight of an outright win against Uttar Pradesh, despite conceding the first-innings lead. Punjab had ended the second day on 243 for 3 after bowling UP out for 335. Yuvraj Singh, who resumed on 72, was sent back for 85 by right-arm medium pacer Imtiaz Ahmed. Mandeep Singh, the other overnight batsman, who was unbeaten on 10, scored 63, but waged a lone battle as Punjab were all out for 319.UP were bowled out for 95 in their second essay with only Rinku Singh making a noteworthy contribution with an unbeaten 43. Punjab were set 112, and their openers Manan Vohra and Jinwanjot Singh put on 59 in 15.4 overs. Vohra was dismissed lbw by Saurabh Kumar for 34, and Punjab’s move to send out a nightwatchman failed as Sandeep Sharma fell in the next over. Jinwanjot stayed unbeaten on 27, and in the company of Uday Kaul, took Punjab to 61 for 2. Punjab require a further 51.Left-arm spinner Vijay Gohil’s maiden first-class five-wicket haul gave Mumbai a 195-run first-innings lead against Railways at the SDNDR Wadeyar Stadium in Mysore. Mumbai had put up 345, riding on Suryakumar Yadav’s 110, before reducing Railways to 76 for 3 on the second day. Gohil, playing his fourth match, added two middle-order wickets, as well as last man out Karan Thakur to finish with 5 for 64 as Railways were bowled out for 160. Asked to follow-on, Railways ended the day on 135 for 4. Saurabh Wakaskar (39), Arindam Ghosh (31) and Ashish Singh (19) got off to starts, but couldn’t hang in. Gohil took one wicket, as did offspinner Siddhesh Lad, while Tushar Deshpande took 2 for 8 in eight overs.

ScorecardDoug Bollinger picked up 3 for 26•Getty Images

Doug Bollinger helped deliver New South Wales a place in the Matador Cup finals as they secured an eight-wicket win over Western Australia at North Sydney Oval. Set 208 for victory, the Blues made an outstanding start to their chase through a 172-run opening stand between Daniel Hughes and Ed Cowan, and from there the result was never in doubt.The win meant New South Wales leapt into the top three and will play against Victoria in the elimination final for the chance to take on Queensland in the tournament decider. The day began well for the Blues when Josh Hazlewood struck in the first over of the match and Trent Copeland in the second, before Adam Voges (62) provided a steadying influence for the Warriors.Michael Klinger (46) and Cameron Bancroft (56) helped made valuable contributions but Bollinger then ran through the lower middle order to finish with 3 for 26 from his eight overs as Western Australia were bowled out for 207 in the 44th over.In the chase, Ashton Turner picked up the only two wickets that fell, but by then the damage had already been done by Cowan and Hughes. Cowan departed for 66 and Hughes was lbw for 96, falling short of what would have been a second consecutive century after his 122 against Victoria on Sunday.

England will be without their leading wicket-taker, James Anderson, for the first Test against India next month.Anderson has already been ruled out of the tour to Bangladesh due to a stress fracture in his left shoulder and now England captain, Alastair Cook, has revealed he will not be ready for the opening match in Rajkot which starts on November 9.”He won’t be ready for the first Test match,” Cook said ahead of the opening Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong. “He might be ready to do some training, but he won’t be ready for the first Test. A decision will be made on when he comes out over the next week or so.”With little more than a week between the end of the Bangladesh series and the start of the one in India, England had planned for Anderson to join the squad in Bangladesh. That decision will now be reviewed, with Cook non-committal about when Anderson could return.”I spoke to him last night and he is training well and in good shape physically,” Cook said. “But he hasn’t yet bowled and that has been the problem in the past. However physically well he’s been in the rest of his body, it’s when he starts bowling [that the problem occurs].”While Anderson’s long-term injury record is excellent – he did not miss a Test through injury from 2011 (he was rested from the dead-rubber Test against West Indies at Edgbaston in 2012) to the middle of 2015 – there will be a concern that, aged 34 and with 119 Tests behind him, the miles on the clock are starting to show.Even before the first Test in India, Anderson will have missed six of England’s most recent 18 Tests in less than 18-months (two against Australia with a side strain, two against Bangladesh with this shoulder problem and one each against Pakistan – also shoulder related – and South Africa with a calf strain). It was also noticeable in South Africa that it took him a little longer to regain full pace than had been the case previously.England would still dearly love to have him available in India. He was described as “the difference between the sides” by MS Dhoni after England won in India in 2012 and showed in the UAE a year ago – when he averaged 15.61 and conceded 1.87 runs per over – that he retains the skills and control to be an asset to his side whatever the conditions.But they will not risk rushing him back. While the selectors were criticised in some quarters for delaying Anderson’s return in the Pakistan series, it now seems he returned a little early: he first felt pain from the shoulder during the Sri Lanka series.

ScorecardJames Foster embraces Ryan ten Doeschate as the Division Two title is clinched•Getty Images

Look out Division One, the Essex boys are coming. Ryan ten Doeschate afterwards played down the effect his captaincy has had on Essex winning promotion but he led from the front to haul his side over the line in their penultimate match of the season, the Division Two title finally secured to raucous approval on a sweltering afternoon in Chelmsford. Ten Doeschate struck the single that took Essex to 250 and a second batting point – enough to move them clear of all challengers – and his fourth hundred of a most fulfilling first season in charge duly followed.The Championship has been a matter of delayed gratification for Essex fans, having seen their side finish third in each of the last three years, and they had to endure one or two trying moments against second-from-bottom Glamorgan before the job was completed. With only one promotion spot going this season, there was no margin for error but they will now return to Division One for the first time since 2010. A trip to Canterbury next week will serve only as a coronation.”We made it hard for ourselves today and it would have been a lot nicer to fly past the winning post but as much as we tried to avoid it, this game was really about getting those bonus points and making sure we didn’t have to go to Kent with any work to do,” ten Doeschate said. “Everyone’s delighted, it’s a bit weird winning it on day two…but I think it’s more a sense of relief up there and a great achievement to achieve what we set out to do at the start of the year.”Promotion was the stated goal and, in Chris Silverwood’s first campaign as head coach, Essex produced their most dominant Championship cricket in more than a decade. They have led practically from start to finish (Kent spent a week on top in July having played a game more), their six victories so far all by the imposing margins of either an innings or ten wickets.Three of those came as the season approached its climax as Essex, in ten Doeschate’s words, carefully “eliminated” their rivals one by one. After Kent were unexpectedly beaten by Northamptonshire last week, they came into this match knowing that bonus points could be enough; five were needed to extinguish Kent’s chances, six in the event that Sussex took maximum points from their game with Worcestershire. Essex were wobbling at 85 for 5 shortly after Sussex were dismissed for 229 in their first innings at Hove but ten Doeschate put on a century standard with Adam Wheater to settle the nerves.It was fitting that ten Doeschate was the man who made sure of things. Since July, his run of scores reads: 91, 52, 25, 83, 109, 60, 86, 109* and 109*; in the process he became the first Essex captain to pass 1000 runs for the season since Ronnie Irani in 2006. Irani, whose return as cricket committee chairman last year led to the winter shake-up in management, would doubtless approve of such talismanic displays.Ten Doeschate was also the man who scored the dramatic last-day hundred to fire Essex up the last time they were promoted, in 2009, but he has experienced enough near-misses over recent years to make this a moment to savour – even if he was keen to downplay his own role.”I think the really rewarding thing about this year was the fact there was only one promotion spot available and we really made a pact that we were going to go for it,” he said. “To achieve it – and it’s only Division Two and we’re only the tenth best team in the country at the moment – is so rewarding, and being captain as well, it is probably my proudest and biggest achievement at Essex.”Subconsciously we’ve tried to be more relaxed and place more faith in the players, and that’s shown in the belief guys have shown in themselves. A year ago, or two years ago there would have been stages, in the same position, where we would have folded and the belief in the camp this year has been a lot better. I personally think the captaincy thing is overrated, I believe it’s more the environment you can create. I don’t really have too much to say on it but things have clicked pretty much from the first game.”Essex have barely clicked so well in four-day cricket since they won Division Two way back in 2002. Only in the middle of the season, when they lost twice in three games, to Leicestershire and Gloucestershire, did they falter. “Since then, we’ve been really switched on, learned quickly from the mistakes we’ve made. Four-day cricket is never easy but we’ve pretty much been faultless over the last five or six weeks,” ten Doeschate said.It has, as the captain was keen to stress, been a collective effort. Essex have the leading wicket-taker in the division, in Graham Napier, as well as two batsman with more than 1000 Championship runs (Tom Westley and ten Doeschate) and a third, Nick Browne, just shy of the mark; the team have racked up more than 500 on five occasions (twice passing 600), something no other Division Two county has done more than twice. Oh, and Alastair Cook’s 643 runs at 91.85 have helped, too.The strategy that Essex set out at the end of last season has been followed with doctrinal zeal. Silverwood was appointed with the aim of getting Essex into Division One of the Championship and he has succeeded where Paul Grayson failed so often, at the first time of asking.Quarter-final defeats in the NatWest Blast and Royal London Cup were uncomfortably reminiscent of the Grayson era but, while limited-overs cricket is important to the club’s finances, Essex believe that being in the top-tier of the Championship is the best way to retain the talent they bring through. The XI for this match, which included the returning Wheater and Varun Chopra in anticipation of Division One challenges ahead, might be considered validation of such a strategy, with only ten Doeschate and Kent-born David Masters requiring honorary Essex boy status.The Championship side has come together as the perfect blend of youth and experience, at least as far as Division Two goes. How they will fare in Division One without Napier and Masters – whose retirement seems imminent – is one of the imponderables that Essex regulars will return to gnaw at periodically over the winter months.For now, Essex have their moment in the late-September sun. On an oppressively hot afternoon, a blissed-out crowd slowly swelled beyond four figures, applauding singles and cheering boundaries as ten Doeschate and his predecessor, James Foster, took them to the ECG equivalent of nirvana. “Come on you Essex boys!” was the cry, before ten Doeschate and Foster embraced. They are coming.

Alex Hales has realised he must remain his own man as he tries to cement his position at the top of England’s batting order rather than trying to copy anyone else.Earlier in the series at Old Trafford, the television coverage picked up that Hales had made an adjustment to his technique between the first and second innings. Hales revealed that had come from watching Joe Root during his double century, but he said that the tweaks, which involved trying to replicate Root’s trigger movements at the crease, did not feel natural to him.Instead, he went and worked with Peter Moores, the former England coach who is now a batting consultant with Nottinghamshire, and returned to trusting his own methods.Hales made 54 in the game-changing opening stand of 126 with Alastair Cook in the second innings at Edgbaston, which was his first significant contribution of the series, but he is still waiting for the maiden Test century which would make him the first Englishman to make hundreds in all three formats.”Watching Rooty bat in the first innings [at Old Trafford], the way he moves his feet around the crease, got me thinking about little adjustments in my game. Second innings, I tried to give it a go and it wasn’t something I was comfortable with,” Hales said.”In between Tests I did a lot of work with Peter Moores. Trying to copy other players isn’t being true to yourself. I made some improvements after South Africa and just because you get a couple of good balls doesn’t mean you should go away from what you have done well in the past.”So I did a bit of alignment work, sticking to the basics of trigger and head movements, some adjustments to the left-armers, but sticking to what has brought me success in the past.”Despite four half-centuries this season, Hales has not quite done enough to end the debate about Alastair Cook’s opening partner. After ten Tests he has 555 runs at 29.21, a difficult start in South Africa being followed by an encouraging display against Sri Lanka where he came close to a maiden hundred on three occasions.Against Pakistan’s higher-class of pace bowlers, however, he has again looked a little vulnerable. He has been caught behind or in the slips in five of his six innings in the series, while in the other was cleaned up by a classy Mohammad Amir inswinger in the first innings at Old Trafford.”The results I have had this series have not been what I’ve wanted, having got a couple of good balls and played a couple of rash shots, but the exciting thing for me is that I’m developing and learning. Keep doing that and enjoying myself and I will give myself the best chance,” he said. “I think the second innings at Edgbaston showed that, but at the same time it’s about scoring runs and getting results and I know I need to score more, particularly in this Test coming up.”It’s important in anyone’s career to get a century. I have given myself five opportunities with five half centuries but not gone on. I am learning and improving so hopefully the best is to come.”One of the curious dynamics of this series has been that Hales, perceived as more of a dashing batsman, has a strike-rate of 47.56 while Alastair Cook is blazing away at 76.20 (Cook’s ODI strike-rate was 77.13). The notion that Hales could be England’s David Warner was always ill-conceived and Hales is happy with how he is adjusting his game.”Something I’ve learnt is not to go out and bat with any preconceived ideas,” he said. “I don’t want to be a guy who is known for blocking it nor hitting it to all parts. You have to be adaptable to each situation. If they bowl well I want to be good enough to see it off and if they bowl poorly still have the intention to hit the bad balls. Just play the situation.”Another contrast between Hales and his opening partner is their sweating. Cook is famous for barely dropping a bead while Hales can barely keep his hands dry. It means the bowlers are desperate to keep the ball away from him when it starts to reverse, as it did so crucially on the final day at Edgbaston.”I stay well clear of it – if I know it’s coming my way I rub them on the floor to try and dry them out,” he said.Hales’ sweating is out of his hands. His chance to finish the Test season in convincing style is certainly not.

Adam Zampa or Jon Holland may soon fly to Sri Lanka to replenish Australia’s spin stocks after Steve O’Keefe suffered an injury to his right hamstring on day three of the Pallekele Test match.In a bad sign for his prospects of being fit in time for the second Test in Galle next week, O’Keefe was unable to complete his 17th over before leaving the field, and did not re-emerge for the remainder of the day as the hosts motored to a substantial lead.The young batsman Kusal Mendis prospered in O’Keefe’s absence, and said the lack of a spinner turning the ball away from the bat was a big advantage. “He proved he was the biggest threat to the right-handers,” Mendis said. “The injury to O’Keefe is a setback to Australia for sure.”O’Keefe’s injury is not only tactically troubling but also a logistical problem for the Australians: MRI equipment required for scans is not available in Kandy, meaning he will have to travel to Colombo for full assessment of the injury. Even if O’Keefe is a chance of recovering in time for what is likely to be a sharply turning wicket in Galle, the tour selectors Rod Marsh and Darren Lehmann may see fit to fly in one of Holland or Zampa.”I feel sorry for Steve, he’s one of my good mates and to see him injure himself I’m not sure where he’s at, but to see him go off the field and for Australia to lose a vital member of our bowling attack is a pretty big loss for us,” Lyon said. Asked about whether he might need spin support in Galle, he said: “I’m confident in my own skill to get the job done, but I don’t pick and choose the team.”Of the two spin bowlers, the legspinner Zampa has spent more recent time around the Australian limited-overs team, and is currently playing in the Caribbean Premier League. Holland, a left-arm orthodox bowler, has impressed in all his recent opportunities for Victoria, including a pivotal role in their Sheffield Shield final victory over South Australia. He is currently in Brisbane with Australia A.For Lyon, the day’s events took some gloss away from the achievement of claiming 200 test wickets, making him the first Australian offspiner to do so. He had struck early in the day with the wicket of Angelo Mathews, caught off bat and pad, but had to wait another several hours before the 200th victim arrived, Dhananjaya de Silva beaten in flight and pushing a catch to mid-off.”I’m very proud of it, but in saying that it probably hasn’t really sunk in yet in the middle of a pretty hard Test match,” Lyon said. “I’ll look back at it at the end of this Test match or the end of the series and look at the achievement. But I can’t wipe the smile off my face, that’s for sure, it’s been a pretty good ride so far, hopefully there’s a few more to come.”

ScorecardJonathan Trott gave Warwickshire the advantage•Getty Images

At 5:43 on a fine summer’s evening at Guildford, Jonathan Trott essayed an exquisite extra cover drive for four. In so doing he reached his century. The warmth with which the crowd responded to Trott’s matter-of-fact celebrations – nothing effusive, for this was just Trott doing as Trott does – spoke of the regard in which this fine cricketer is held throughout the shires.It was a heartening moment indeed for those who had feared that the termination of Trott’s international career last May would trigger his entire departure from the professional game. Certainly there were reasons to be fretful last summer: Trott averaged just 25.05 for Warwickshire, his worst return since 2007, and considered retirement.So far, 2016 has been altogether more fulfilling. An April trip to Lord’s brought a double century, and Trott’s run-making has not ceased thereafter, even if they have paid measured in 50s rather than hundreds.Ever since Mitchell Johnson harassed Trott three years ago, it has been almost de rigueur to greet Trott with a bouncer, just as Mark Footitt did here. Trott left that well alone, and did much the same when Stuart Meaker and the Curran brothers tested out this perceived vulnerability. In the end, they merely provided affirmation of Trott’s enduring patience; certainty defined his every response, even when it was just to duck or leave the ball.After a rather funereal start, Trott did plenty more than that. As the sun lit up a flat pitch, this innings assumed the air of a man batting on auto-pilot. This was a chanceless century underpinned by all Trott’s trademarks – imperious defence, driving that eschews elegance for efficiency, and, more than anything, all those remorseless shuffles to the legside. Yet in the evening sunshine he still retained the capacity to surprise. Gifted width by Meaker just after reaching his first century against Surrey, Trott flatbatted a six over third man, and then unfurled a thunderous cut through point two balls later. It was a matter of considerable surprise when Sam Curran defeated Trott with a delivery that moved back in.Trott walked off slowly, chuntering to himself and shaking his head. In a sense this was the most heartening sight of all: even in his 36th year, Trott’s competitiveness and zest for self-betterment are undimmed. Were circumstances different one could easily imagine him lining up at number three – a position from which only Wally Hammond have scored more runs for England in Test cricket – against Pakistan this month.That will not be happening. But instead Trott has the air of a man who will be accumulating runs for half a decade more in the shires yet.The same could well be true of his Warwickshire captain. Ian Bell will hope otherwise, but he has not been able to turn the promise of 174 in his first innings of 2016 into the glut of runs needed to convince the selectors he is worth revisiting. Sixty-six attractive runs, ended by a top edged sweet, ultimately registered as a missed opportunity, no matter how sweet his late cuts.In international cricket, Bell’s most productive partner was Trott. The two shared seven century stands – although, rather curiously given the reputation of both players, five of those were in ODI cricket but only two in Tests. If their alliance here was a long way short of the double century that ensured England’s victory in India four years ago, the 116 runs the two added have gone a long way towards shaping the match.The upshot was a day’s toil for Surrey, especially with Tim Ambrose, another Test match centurion, flaying the ball through the offside in forging another century stand with Trott. In isolation, Surrey bowled well enough, their spirit unbroken in a day elongated by morning showers. The trouble was that this day did not take place in isolation, but after Surrey had lost five wickets for 30 en route to being bowled out for 273. It was a score that always had the feel of being a hundred shy of par given the quality of the wicket and the shortness of the boundaries.If there was a pleasing sense of familiarity to Trott’s innings, there is a rather dispiriting predictability to Surrey’s plight in this game. Woodbridge Road was host to their only Championship defeat last year; not since 2002 have Surrey won here. They should already be fearful of 2019, when the demands the World Cup will place upon The Oval might necessitate them playing two games here.

ScorecardChesney Hughes rediscovered his early season good form•Getty Images

Half-centuries from visiting batsmen Hamish Rutherford and Chesney Hughes coupled with an unbeaten 73 by Wayne Madsen ensured that Derbyshire edged into the ascendancy by the midpoint of their Specsavers County Championship clash with Kent. In response to Kent’s 379 all out, Derbyshire reached stumps on 291 for 3 and will go into the third day in Canterbury trailing by 88 runs.On a second-day pitch that appears to have lost some of its initial pace and carry, Derbyshire’s top order dug in for steady, if unspectacular, run-making against a Kent attack hit by three injuries and shorn of its spearhead, Matt Coles, who had been declared “unavailable for selection”.Having failed to take a wicket in the 17 overs through to lunch, the hosts at least winkled out two Derbyshire batsmen in the mid-session but still missed the cutting edge of their attack leader Coles. The 26-year-old had allegedly missed the game due to “personal reasons” but his absence only served to spark rumours aplenty among the Kent membership.In the absence of Coles, Kent turned to six bowlers but only the wily Mitch Claydon and James Tredwell enjoyed any success. Visiting skipper Billy Godleman nicked off to Claydon, as Tom Latham, diving almost behind the keeper Sam Billings, took a superb slip catch to make it 75 for 1. Then, after facing 120 balls for his 65, Hamish Rutherford holed out to Alex Blake at long-off to give Tredwell his first scalp of the match.Having cut the Kent lead to 211 by the tea interval, Derbyshire ploughed on during the evening session as left-hander Chesney Hughes posted a 91-ball 50 with seven fours. He combined with Madsen to add 112 in 28.5 overs for the third wicket until Hughes, on 83 from 139 balls, top edged an attempted slog-sweep to send a steepling return catch to Tredwell.In the next over Madsen reached his half-century milestone from 101 balls and with four fours as dour post-tea events out in the middle vied for attention with the first half of Italy’s Euro 2016 tie with Spain, which was being shown on the TVs around ground.At the start of the day Kent captain Sam Northeast was dismissed nine short of a maiden double-hundred as Kent posted 379 all out. Northeast improved upon his career best but, on 191, he was caught at long-on when attempting to clear the ropes against Hughes’ left-arm spin. He batted for over six hours, faced 266 balls and hit 22 fours.Kent also lost Tredwell and Claydon in the opening hour as the hosts missed out on a fifth batting bonus point by 21 runs.

Rishabh Pant shocked everyone by coming out to bat with a broken foot and extending his overnight retired-hurt score of 37 to 54.During this unexpected extension of his innings, he hit his 90th six in Test cricket to go level with Virender Sehwag, India’s highest six-hitter in Test cricket. It took Sehwag 103 Tests to do so; this was Pant’s only 47th Test. Pant went on to get to his fifty with a block with no follow-through that raced along the floor to the cover boundary.Pant injured his right foot during the final session of the first day when, while trying to reverse-sweep Chris Woakes, he ended up playing the full toss onto his boot. He went down in seemingly unbearable pain immediately, and when he removed his sock, it revealed an egg-sized lump.Pant had to be carted off the field in a golf-style buggy, and he went straight for scans. The BCCI is yet to confirm the results of the scans, but ESPNcricinfo understands that he has a fracture and that he is out of the final Test.Related

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Dhruv Jurel will keep wicket for the rest of the Manchester Test, but it was anticipated that Pant would bat only if India needed him desperately.However, Pant was seen in his whites as Shardul Thakur and Washington Sundar added 48 for the sixth wicket. Just before lunch on day two, with the score 314 for 6 in conditions where 350 is being seen as above par, Pant walked out to a big applause. He was still in pain, couldn’t do much more than hobble through for his runs, but he hung around for long enough to have 35 runs added while he was at the wicket.During his extended innings, Pant was involved in the running 14 of singles. Once he lost Washington, Pant picked up a slower ball from Jofra Archer and smacked a pull for six before bringing up his fifty. Archer had to produce the unplayable ball – angling in from round the wicket, seaming away, hitting top of off – to get rid of Pant.

Tawanda Muyeye cemented himself as the leading run-scorer in the Men’s Vitality Blast 2025 with a jaw-dropping maiden T20 century as Kent Spitfires tore rivals Essex apart.Muyeye became Kent’s eighth T20 hundred-maker, with the club’s joint-most sixes in an innings as he hoisted his bat on a stunning 58-ball 100.He and opening partner Daniel Bell-Drummond are the only two players to reach three figures in this year’s competition, with Muyeye’s 362 runs leading the charts.Matt Parkinson’s first T20 five-wicket haul pulled the rug out under Essex’s doomed chase of 214 as they were bowled out for 172, despite Dean Elgar’s patient 50 and Simon Harmer’s late pyrotechnics in scoring 55.Essex wanted to chase, and started strongly with the ball with three tight overs before Muyeye swung Harmer for two sixes in a row to begin his assault on Chelmsford. He put on 71 with Bell-Drummond for the first wicket, 76 with Joe Denly and 43 with captain Sam Billings – all got starts, but there was only one star of the show.There is no secret that Muyeye is one of the most aesthetically pleasing batters on the circuit. His quick hands, paired with a long backswing, caught the eye, but it was the power that had the hosts scrambling.He fired seven sixes in total into the balmy sky, equalling the record for Kent, plus six hammered fours.Muyeye quickly moved to the top of the Blast run-scoring charts for this season, and made a play to stay there for the rest of the campaign, with a half-century ticked off in 32 balls and his ton in 58.In doing so he joined an esteemed and exclusive list of Kent T20 centurions – Denly, Bell-Drummond, Billings, Zak Crawley, Azhar Mahmood, Sam Northeast, and Andrew Symonds being the other inductees.He might have controlled a full toss straight to long-off next ball, but the damage was done. Kent reached 219, with Shane Snater, Harmer and Luc Benkenstein picking up a wicket each, although Mohammad Amir was the only bowler to go at under sevens.A bumper Friday night crowd resorted to gallows humour when Elgar finally found the boundary with the 20th ball of the innings, having already seen Tom Rogers skip one past Michael Pepper.Things heated up later in the third over when Jordan Cox swung and missed. Wicketkeeper Billings threw the ball at the stumps, missed and hit his former team-mate. Cox responded by kicking the ball away and verbals were exchanged at close quarters.Cox punted the following delivery down the ground for four, but the spat ended when Billings gave Cox a send-off after skying to long-on.Parkinson, who had dismissed Cox, then bowled Paul Walter with legspinning perfection with the next ball, but squandered a hat-trick with a leg-side wide.Parkinson added a third when Benkenstein stuck one straight up and another as Matt Critchley found the deep point fielder.Elgar had quietly amassed his 16th T20 fifty, but he was bowled by another Parkinson beauty, the spinner ending up with 5 for 23. Charlie Allison, Noah Thain, Shane Snater and Harmer also fell – with Joey Evison taking two in two at one point.While Essex remain the sole winless side in either group, Harmer entertained the crowd with seven sixes once the match was mathematically lost – he smacked 55 in 21 balls.