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T20 Blast: Kent are through to the last eight after a dramatic win

Image: Alex Blake played a starring role in another T20 win for Kent

Kent are through to the NatWest T20 Blast quarter-finals after a superb innings from Alex Blake helped them to a three-wicket win over Gloucestershire at Cheltenham.

Gloucestershire run machine Michael Klinger made 75 to help them tally 166-7 and Kent looked in trouble at 92-5.

However, Blake smashed a stunning 59 not out from just 24 balls and the South Group leaders got home with two balls to spare, making it nine wins from 12 T20 matches this season.

Gloucestershire opted to bat first and in-form Aussie Klinger strengthened his position as the competition’s leading run-scorer with another fine knock.

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His 75 came off 50 balls, with seven fours and two sixes, and he has now scored 653 runs in the South Group at an average of 108.83.

Klinger’s fellow Aussie Peter Handscomb (28) helped add 79 but the hosts lost momentum in the closing overs and Mitchell Claydon finished with 3-27.

Kent’s reply was then given a brisk start by Joe Denly, who hit 31 off 18 balls before falling lbw to James Fuller.

But England man Sam Billings (5) was brilliantly caught above his head by Benny Howell at backward point when he reverse swept the first ball sent down by Tom Smith (1-25), who is the tournament’s leading wicket-taker, and it was 92-5 when Howell (2-30) bowled Fabian Cowdrey.

However, skipper Sam Northeast (49) then added 39 in four overs with Blake, who was soon into his stride, smashing Howell and Smith for sixes.

Craig Miles (3-27) had Northeast caught on the boundary in the 17th over when 36 were still needed but Blake responded by smashing a six and three fours off the 18th over, bowled by Liam Norwell.

Nine were required off the final over and Blake hit Fuller’s second ball for four, before ending the match in an appropriate manner by smashing another six two balls later.

Blake said: "I seem to be developing a role at the end of our innings and I'm really enjoying it.

“You have to go hard from ball one and that helps me because it gets me picking my bat up a lot more and swinging.

"We're over the moon to be through the group with two games still to play and now the aim has to be to clinch a home quarter-final.”

Gloucestershire’s Hamish Marshall had to retire hurt when batting and Klinger said: “He has been struggling with a calf problem and I would think he will now be out for three or four weeks.”

In the North Group, Northamptonshire are closing in on a quarter-final place after a sensational Richard Levi innings helped them to a nine-wicket win over Leicestershire, who are almost eliminated.

The match was reduced to 10-overs-a-side by rain and, after Leicestershire batted first and made 111-4, Northants cantered home with nine balls to spare as Levi hit 67 not out off just 28 balls.

It was a wet afternoon but the action finally got underway at 4.50 and Leicestershire posted an apparently useful target.

New Zealand international Grant Elliott hit 56 off 29 balls for the Foxes and was ably supported by Ben Raine (32 not out 19), the duo adding 76 in 39 balls after Leicestershire had lost wickets in each of the first three overs.

However, when Northants batted, Levi and Josh Cobb (22) took 22 and 25 from overs two and three respectively.

Cobb fell in the fourth over but Leicestershire could find no way to contain Levi, the South African taking just 19 balls to record his 21st T20 half-century.

Ben Duckett (24 not out) also played well and the duo’s stand of 65 in 30 balls took Northants to a remarkably straightforward victory.

Yorkshire’s chances of reaching the quarter-finals took another blow when they lost by four wickets to bottom-of-the-table Derbyshire at Chesterfield.

Having started badly, the Vikings eventually totalled 146-9, and Derbyshire got home with seven balls to spare to end a run of seven consecutive home defeats against Yorkshire in T20 cricket.

Derbyshire captain Wes Durston (3-14) took three wickets with his off-spin in the first five overs of the Yorkshire innings, before Jonny Bairstow (22) and Glenn Maxwell (45 off 29 balls) added 64 for the fourth wicket.

However, the big-hitting duo then fell in quick succession and Yorkshire needed Jack Leaning’s 37 from 22 balls to get up close to 150.

New Zealand international opener Hamish Rutherford then smashed 40 off 24 balls to get the Derbyshire run chase off to a flying start.

Wayne Madsen kept up the momentum with 41 off 38 balls before Alex Hughes hit 19 not out to wrap things up in front of a sell-out crowd of 4,500.

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