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County Championship: Sam Curran and Will Jacks hundreds leave Kent with survival job

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Sam CurranImage source, Rex Features
Image caption,

Sam Curran made his previous highest first-class score of 96 against Lancashire in 2016

LV= County Championship Division One, Kia Oval (day two):

Surrey 673-7 dec: S Curran 126, Amla 124, Geddes 124, Jacks 103*; Pettman 2-102

Kent 147-2: Bell-Drummond 62*, Denly 38

Kent (1pt) trail Surrey (5pts) by 526 with 8 wickets remaining

Sam Curran made his maiden first-class hundred as Division One leaders Surrey continued to dominate Kent on the second day of their County Championship match at the Kia Oval.

For only the second time in their history, four batsmen made centuries in the same Championship innings as Surrey racked up 673-7, with Will Jacks also making an undefeated 103 to add to the first-day hundreds by Ben Geddes and Hashim Amla.

Surrey's total was a new record against Kent and only two runs more than they made at Beckenham in May when seven of their batters scored fifties - but no-one made a hundred.

Curran then picked up the wicket of Ben Compton in the fourth over of Kent's reply and the visitors also lost Joe Denly before Daniel Bell-Drummond and skipper Jack Leaning fought back either side of a 90-minute rain delay which took 17 overs out of the day's allocation.

Bell-Drummond reached fifty for the second successive match as Kent closed on 147-2, still 526 runs behind.

Earlier, Surrey had continued to dominate an understrength Kent attack, with Curran and Jacks to the fore.

They plundered 190 runs in 26.2 overs during a morning session interrupted by a 20-minute rain delay before Surrey declared 20 minutes after lunch after Jacks on-drove Raj Singh for successive boundaries to bring up his hundred.

Curran had previously scored 29 fifties without converting any of them into a century, but he never looked like missing out against an attack which conceded 5.2 runs an over before their suffering ended.

None of Kent's seamers offered sufficient control and Curran did much as he pleased.

He reached his century with a straight hit off George Linde which brought him one of his five sixes. He also struck 15 fours in his 126 off 75 balls before slicing a drive to backward point off the South African.

Curran's sixth-wicket stand of 133 with Jacks came in just 16 overs as Surrey cruised along at 8.2 runs an over before lunch.

Leaning brought himself into the attack - the eighth bowler used - and dismissed Gus Atkinson, who drove to deep mid-off, but Jacks needed only 92 balls for his century, which included 18 boundaries.

It was the third time this season that Kent have conceded more than 600 in the first innings and five of their bowlers went for more than 100 runs.

Curran was soon in the action with the ball, striking in his second over when Compton played on, extra bounce taking him by surprise.

Denly, making his way back after injury, was bowled through the gate to give Dan Worrall reward for a testing new-ball spell and leave Kent 55-2.

Curran, whose first five-over spell went for 17, bowled four more overs in the evening session, but on a good pitch Surrey's bowlers will have to work hard over the remaining two days to chalk up their fifth win of the season.

Report supplied by the ECB Reporters' Network.