County Championship: Surrey openers lay solid foundation against Kent

Dom Sibley hit an unbeaten 87 as Surrey dominated Kent on day two of their County Championship derby at Canterbury.

The visitors reached 185-1 at stumps in reply to Kent's 244 all out.

Cameron Steel and Tom Lawes both took three wickets apiece and although night-watcher George Garrett outshone his batting partners with a career-best 48, any hopes Kent's total might look competitive vanished as Sibley and Rory Burns put on 147 for the opening wicket.

Garrett eventually got Burns for 69, but Sibley and Dan Lawrence batted through to stumps, at which point Surrey were just 59 behind.

Kent were 111-3 overnight and Kemar Roach had Jack Leaning (30) lbw to the third delivery of the morning.

Garrett pulled Lawes for successive fours as he overtook his previous highest first-class score of 24, but the remaining specialist batters all squandered promising starts.

Joe Denly was bowled for 32 and Harry Finch was caught for nine in the slips by Sibley off Jordan Clark soon after lunch.

Garrett fell two short of his half-century when he edged Steel behind and the spinner then had Matt Parkinson stumped by Ben Foakes for a duck.

Kent's last recognised batter went when Foakes sprang to his right to catch Joey Evison off Lawes for 30.

Jas Singh also made his highest first-class score, but when he was lbw to Lawes for 15, Kent were still six short of a batting point.

Surrey's response rapidly began to look ominous. Kent created few chances and when Sibley nicked Arafat Bhuiyan he was put down by Finch.

Burns flicked Matt Parkinson for a single to reach 50 and Sibley - who took 578 minutes to make 140 at this venue last season - reached his half-century from 86 balls with a single off Arafat.

Burns fell to Garrett when Zak Crawley took a smart slip catch, but it was to be the only success of the day for Kent's bowlers.

Report supplied by the ECB Reporters' Network.