Watch: Kent wicketkeeper Harry Finch pulled off an extraordinary stumping against Lancashire at Old Trafford yesterday (May 4).
Kent made 261 after Lancashire captain Keaton Jennings won the toss and asked them to field in a County Championship 2024 Division One match at Manchester. They were 129-6 before Joey Evison (71) and Grant Stewart (45) bailed them out with a 69-run stand. For the hosts, Will Williams finished with 3-44, George Balderson 3-67, and Nathan Lyon 3-50.
Wes Agar (4-35) and Nathan Gilchrist (6-24) then shot out Lancashire for 92 in 30 overs. It could have been worse – they were 51-8 at one point – but wicketkeeper Matthew Hurst (35), the only one to go past 10, helped them reduce the deficit. Harry Finch held four catches.
Lancashire had a better start in the second innings after Kent captain Daniel Bell-Drummond enforced the follow on. Jennings (40) added 50 with Luke Wells (22), then 51 with Josh Bohannon (31). At 103-2, Kent looked well placed for a healthy second-innings total.
Bowling from over the wicket, Matt Parkinson now pitched a ball on leg and middle. The left-handed Jennings stepped out, only for the leg-break to turn the proverbial mile.
Finch showed amazing alacrity behind the stumps. Already in motion, he stretched his right glove out, collected the ball very low, and while rolling over, he hit the stumps with the ball in his hands in one swift motion with Jennings still outside the crease.
Kent has had a long lineage of outstanding wicketkeepers. One of the finest glovemen before the Wars, Fred Huish was a rare professional to lead a county in that era and is still sixth on the list of most first-class dismissals. Les Ames, an excellent batter in an era when a wicketkeeper was not expected to bat well, remains the only gloveman with a hundred first-class hundreds. Godfrey Evans and Alan Knott are widely rated among the greatest in the history of the sport. Finch’s stumping may bring a smile to the Kent loyalists.
At stumps on day two, Lancashire were 119-4. They need another 50 to make Kent bat again.
Watch Kent wicketkeeper Harry Finch’s extraordinary stumping:
A jaw-dropping piece of glovework from Kent's Harry Finch
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