Somerset Sabres may already be relegated to the second division of the NUL National League but from the performance they produced to beat Kent Spitfires at the County Ground they looked anything but a relegated side.

After being put into bat the Sabres openers Jamie Cox and Piran Holloway got the side off to a good start, putting on 72 before the skipper was out for 41.

Coming in at number three Keith Dutch added 58 for the second wicket before with the score on 130 he too perished for 34.

Cornishman Holloway continued to play in some style and remained unbeaten until the end of the Sabres innings by which time the left hander had taken his score onto 112 and produced his best batting performance of the season.

Towards the end of the Sabres overs there was a breezy knock of 24 from Pete Trego, before they closed on 244 for 6.

When Kent batted a good spell from both opening bowlers Matt Bulbeck and Simon Francis ensured that they were never up with the asking rate, and they lost Matthew Fleming with the score on 21 after he became the first of Rob Turner's five victims in the game.

Steve Waugh and Robert Key added 58 for the second wicket before Key was stumped by Turner off Ian Blackwell.

Wicket-keeper Paul Nixon followed shortly afterwards as Francis held onto a skier in front of the Colin Atkinson Pavilion, and Arul Suppiah took another good catch at deep square leg to dismiss Matthew Walker and Kent had slipped to 91 for 4.

David Fulton and Waugh took the score past the hundred but five runs later Fulton was trapped LBW by Trego.

One of the biggest cheers of the day was reserved for the young all rounder from Weston super Mare when he clean bowled Aussie star Waugh in the 32nd over and from 120 for 7 the Spitfires slumped to 126 all out in the 34th over.

The pick of the Somerset bowlers was slow left armer Ian Blackwell who ended with 4 for 24 from his 6 overs.

At the end of the game Jamie Cox told me: "This was a good win for us and we are delighted with the result. There were some excellent individual performances today from Piran Holloway who had a brilliant innings, Ian Blackwell who took four valuable wickets and Rob Turner who claimed five victims."

Batting star Piran Holloway : "This was a very good performance from the lads today in this competition and will give us some confidence for next season. I have been playing well all the season and it was good for me to have opportunity to prove this with my innings today. It's good to show people that I can play a bit sometimes."

Wicket-keeper Rob Turner told me: "It really spun big today. `Blackie' put it in the right place on a good length and the batsmen did the rest. All of our bowlers bowled very tight today which meant that I could get up to the stumps early on before their batsmen could settle."

The 2002 beneficiary concluded: " This was one of the best Somerset NUL performances that I've played in for a very long time and it was very pleasing to be part of it."

© SOMERSET