Kent lost five wickets late on day two of their LV= Insurance County Championship clash with leaders Surrey but still remain in the box seat at Canterbury.

Matt Quinn took 3-22 as Surrey were bowled out for just 145 in their first innings to give the home side a lead of 156. Kent were 147-1 at one stage in their second innings but reached 197-6 at stumps, still a lead of 353 with four wickets remaining.

A crowd of 2,431 attended on day two, bolstered by around 1,100 schoolchildren and teachers, although the start was delayed by 45 minutes due to a thunderstorm before the scheduled start.

Surrey resumed on 18-2 but – in similar fashion to Kent – they were soon on the backfoot at 42-6.

It was 32-3 when Quinn had Kiwi Tom Latham caught by Tawanda Muyeye at short leg for three and Quinn struck again when Jordan Cox took an acrobatic catch to remove opener Dom Sibley for nine.

Arshdeep Singh was rewarded for a spell of sustained menace with his first wicket in county cricket when he had Ben Foakes lbw for three and Quinn and Muyeye then produced an almost exact imitation of the Latham wicket to get rid of Jamie Smith for six.

Surrey lurched to 60-6 at lunch and hadn’t added to the score when Agar (3-32) bowled Will Jacks with the 10th ball of the afternoon session, with a delivery that sent his middle stump pirouetting.

Jordan Clark and Sean Abbott put on the biggest stand of the innings with 48 for the eighth wicket, until both were dismissed by Joey Evison. Clark lingered for 25 before Evison (2-22) hit his leg side bail and Abbott went for 34 in Evison’s next over, after a one-handed catch by Cox.

Dan Worrall and Dan Moriarty added 20 for the last wicket until the former tried to slog Arshdeep, who ripped out his leg stump to finish with 2-43.

Surrey were seven short of the follow-on target, although with 57 overs left in the day, it was no surprise when Kent chose not to enforce it.

They were 37-0 loss at tea but lost Compton soon after for 17, Clark having him caught by Atkinson at point.

Muyeye was easy on the eye, hitting Abbott for three successive boundaries. But, not for the first time in his career, he fell when a century looked there for the taking when he hit Atkinson to Latham on 79.

A cluster of wickets followed as Kent lost five wickets for 26 runs in less than 11 overs.

Joe Denly went for six to Worrall, a chance that was grabbed by a diving Foakes. Worrall (3-53) produced an unplayable outswinger to get rid of Jack Leaning for one and Jordan Cox was on two when he gloved Abbott behind.

Daniel Bell-Drummond, who made a patient 59 having put on 102 with Muyeye, then fell in nearly identical fashion, leaving Evison and Hamid Qadri to bat out the rest of an almost interminable session, which finally ended at 7.37pm. Qadri struggled with some short-pitch bowling but somehow survived to the close.

Muyeye said: “The bowlers were pretty good today. We probably put them on the back foot early on and I think as a bowling unit you don’t get many days as perfect as that.

“They put it on a string today, it was pretty impressive to watch. I guess Arshdeep brought new energy, Wes is always just bubbly and with Quinny all three of them were pretty good.

“The pitch was good and when you have a big lead it’s so much easier to bat. We tried to capitalise on the wicket being flatter with the sun being out and obviously I enjoy batting with Daniel so it was good fun.

“I’m pretty chilled I guess, so having him out there being chilled as well was pretty good for us. I think it flattened out a bit and they bowled really well but I think we probably played just a little bit better so hopefully we can carry on tomorrow and get that 400 lead.”