Matt Milnes is the summer’s final Rothesay County Championship Player of the Round after his nine-wicket match haul helped bowl Kent to victory over Gloucestershire and secure promotion back to Division One.
Milnes followed up a first-innings return of 4-55 with second-innings figures of 5-33 to see Kent to an eight-wicket victory at Canterbury and nail down second place in the Division Two table with promotion rivals Northamptonshire losing to Middlesex at Lord’s.
“It’s a great moment for the club,” Milnes said. “There's a lot of graft and hard work that gets put into a County Championship season, but to get the success at the end of it makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it?”
Kent bowled out Gloucestershire for 229 and followed it up with a first-innings score of 353, driven by 126 from opener Ben Compton. With the visitors 124 in arrears, Milnes struck first ball of their second innings, removing Joe Phillips on the way to Gloucestershire being bowled out for 241. Zak Crawley’s 44 and an unbeaten 49 from Sam Northeast then saw Kent to their target of 119 to spark celebrations amongst the Canterbury faithful.
“It was in our hands going into the last game and we'd been on a bit of a run at home, especially in the Championship. So I feel like we were pretty confident going into the week.
“We had quite a few bowlers to choose from in terms of depth of bowling for the last run of games which I think probably not many clubs around the country can say at this time of year. We were in a pretty confident position. Obviously you do keep one eye a little bit on what's going on at Lord’s but on the whole, I think we just concentrated on doing our job.
“It is literally just another game of cricket. The squad we've got now is fairly experienced, certainly in the batting department. We've got some experienced batters and they know what they're doing and they know their games inside out. They get us up to a competitive score in the first innings to get ahead of the game and let our bowlers get to work in the third or fourth innings. And that's been the recipe for success really.”
Milnes took 54 Division Two wickets at 20.03 and a strike rate of below 40, including career-best figures of 6-12 against Derbyshire back in May, but feels he really hit his straps towards the back end of the summer.
“It feels great making a match-winning contribution in big games like that when there's promotion on the line. It makes it even sweeter and even more special. I feel like I've bowled pretty well all year. I felt in really good rhythm. At the start of the year when things probably didn't quite fall for me, I still felt I was bowling well. So, to have the rewards come the back end of the year, I felt like I'd earned it.”
Milne’s match figures of 9-88 were his second nine-wicket haul of the summer, but neither of those returns were his most satisfying outing. “The Middlesex game at home when we won on the final day and the pitch didn't offer that much to the bowlers in terms of sideways movement on day four, I remember that as a real grind and we had to put in some real hard yards to get over the line against a good side.”
Milnes took second-innings figures of 5-31 as Kent bowled out Middlesex for 181 to win by 49 runs. “I'd say that probably stands out as a performance of the season. I thought that was probably the most rewarding in terms of the sheer grind to get the win on day four.”
Milnes received three votes for his match haul against Gloucestershire which confirmed his place in the season’s top-10 players, earning him a place on the shortlist to win the Cricket Media Club Borders Distillery County Championship Player of the Year. The final winner will be voted on by members of the Cricket Media Club.
Ethan Bamber claimed his third successive player-of-the-match in Warwickshire’s title-clinching win over Leicestershire to finish level at the top of the leaderboard with Durham’s Matt Potts.
Final Leaderboard
17 votes: Ethan Bamber (Warwickshire), Matthew Potts (Durham)
15: Craig Overton (Somerset), Matt Milnes (Kent)
12: Olly Stone (Nottinghamshire), Tom Abell (Somerset)
10: George Hill (Yorkshire), Jake Lehmann (Hampshire), Ryan Higgins (Middlesex)
9: Henry Crocombe (Sussex), Mason Crane (Glamorgan), Ben Aitchison (Derbyshire), Matthew Waite (Worcestershire)
Round 15 votes – Division One
Warwickshire v Leicestershire: 3 – Ethan Bamber (Warwickshire), 2 – Sam Hain (Warwickshire), 1 – Chris Woakes (Warwickshire).
Nottinghamshire v Yorkshire: 3 – Jack White (Yorkshire), 2 – Jonny Bairstow (Yorkshire), 1 – Olly Stone (Nottinghamshire)
Glamorgan v Essex: 3 – Asa Tribe (Glamorgan), 2 – Dean Elgar (Essex), 1 – Zain-ul-Hasan (Glamorgan)
Somerset v Surrey: 3 – Tom Abell (Somerset), 2 – Tom Lammonby (Somerset), 1 – Dan Lawrence (Surrey)
Hampshire v Sussex: 3 – Tom Price (Sussex), 2 – Jaydev Unadkat (Sussex), 1 – Tom Haines (Sussex).
Division Two
Lancashire v Durham: 3 – Josh Bohannon (Lancashire), 2 – Emilio Gay (Durham), 1 – Noman Ali (Lancashire).
Kent v Gloucestershire: 3 – Matt Milnes (Kent), 2 – Ben Compton (Kent), 1 – Khaled Ahmed (Kent)
Worcestershire v Derbyshire: 3 – Ben Allison (Worcestershire), 2 – Matthew Waite (Worcestershire), 1 – Mohammad Abbas (Derbyshire).
Middlesex v Northamptonshire: 3 – Ryan Higgins (Middlesex), 2 – Ben Geddes (Middlesex), 1 – Saif Zaib (Northamptonshire).