Bob Willis Trophy: Kent beat Sussex after Cox & Leaning share record stand

Jack Leaning and Jordan Cox hit 56 boundaries between them - plus three sixes for Cox

Darren Stevens bagged five wickets to help clinch Kent's innings-and-25-run win over Sussex after a record-breaking display of batting that featured double-hundreds by Jordan Cox and Jack Leaning.

In near ideal batting conditions in Canterbury, Stevens, now 44, revealed all his bowling wiles to bag 5-50 as the visitors succumbed in their second innings for 173 all out.

They lost four wickets in 22.1 overs through to tea after Kent had declared their mammoth first innings on 530-1.

A half-century off 68-balls by Harry Finch stemmed the flow of wickets from one end at the start of the evening session, but all-rounder Stevens continued his canny spell to bag the 27th five-wicket haul of his first-class career.

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Earlier, Leaning and Cox smashed unbeaten career-best scores in an unbroken club record first-class stand worth 423 spread over 95 overs.

Teenager Cox broke numerous records during his 570-ball stay with 47 fours and three sixes for 238 not out, while Leaning joined him with 220 not out from 345 balls and 29 boundaries.

The declaration after 120 overs, a regulation in the new Trophy competition, came shortly after 2.00pm with Kent 198 ahead.

Yet it was hardly soon enough for a shattered Sussex attack who had toiled for eight hours for one wicket, that of Daniel Bell-Drummond for 43.

Resuming on their healthy overnight score of 338-1, Kent's second-wicket partners Cox and Leaning continued to churn out the runs.

Leaning, who was dropped by Haines at long leg when on 19 after a top-edged hook against Stuart Meaker, made Sussex pay by reaching his 150 from 232 balls with 22 fours.

He had already comfortably eclipsed his previous best first-class score of 123 set for Yorkshire against Somerset at Taunton in 2014.

Cox then posted his maiden double-hundred in first-class cricket. By scampering a single to point off George Garton he reached the landmark off 311 balls with 25 fours and three sixes.

The 19-year-old went on to notch Kent's highest individual innings against Sussex, beating Neil Taylor's 203 not out set at Hove in 1991, and then became the county's highest maiden century-maker - beating the 57-year-old record of 211 made by David Nicholls against Derbyshire at Folkestone in 1963.

The records continued to tumble when Leaning moved to his maiden double century with a five. Sprinting a single to mid-wicket, Leaning saw Jack Carson's throw deflect off the non-striker's end stumps and away to the boundary. Leaning's 200 came in 351 minutes off 289 balls and with 29 fours.

By lunch the pair had sailed past Kent's highest first-class partnership record against any county of 382 set by Sean Dickson and Joe Denly for the second wicket against Northamptonshire at Beckenham in 2017.

They had also beaten the 131-year-old Kent record for any wicket in matches against Sussex of 249 by fourth-wicket partners George Hearne and Francis Marchant at Gravesend in 1889.

Indeed, Kent's total of 530 for one became the fourth-highest single-wicket score in global first-class cricket history behind the world record of 561 for one held by Karachi Whites in the Patrons Trophy against Quetta in 1977.

Match report supplied by PA Media.