Kent suffered an innings defeat after failing to extend their LV= Insurance County Championship Division 1 clash with Warwickshire into a final day at Canterbury on Wednesday.

Resuming on 55-1, half-centuries from Harry Finch and Jack Leaning plus a rain delay gave Kent hope, but Warwickshire took the last three wickets in the space of just 10 balls to complete victory by an innings and 46 runs.

Kent made steady, albeit slow progress, early on but lost Ben Compton when he nicked Oliver Hannon-Dalby (4-59) behind for 26.

Joe Denly made 45 from 105 balls but fell to the same combination, caught by Michael Burgess after the ball seemed to ricochet off his pads, to leave them 86-3.

Finch and Leaning batted through until rain brought an early lunch at 12.52pm. Play resumed at 2.15pm, with nine balls bowled before a second, briefer delay of 20 minutes, resulting in a cumulative loss of nine overs.

Their resistance was Kent’s biggest stand of the match and worth exactly a hundred, but it ended when Leaning fell into a trap. With three fielders crowding the bat on the leg side, he tried repeating a shot he’d played in Robert Yates’ previous over and this time the bowler had him caught by Jacob Bethell for 64 in 72 balls.

Jordan Cox lasted 17 balls before he tried to sweep Yates and was lbw for four, leaving Kent on 223-5 at tea.

Finch’s obdurate innings came to an end when, having made 67 in just over three hours, Chris Rushworth bowled him with the new ball. Then Henry Brookes had Joey Evison caught behind for 37, and at 267-7 it seemed only a matter of time.

Grant Stewart decided to have some fun, whacking successive sixes off Rushworth including one that went into a third-tier balcony in the Old Dover Road flats and he hung around for 44 balls, putting on 64 with Hamid Qadri before he hit Hannon-Dalby to Glenn Maxwell at gully for 40.

Qadri went at the start of the next over, lbw to Maxwell for 30, and the victory was confirmed when Arshdeep Singh drove Hannon-Dalby to Will Rhodes at mid-on in the next over to leave Kent 332 all out in 100.2 overs.

Finch said: “It was a tough one to take. I think it’s pretty obvious we lost our game in the first innings. We were 70-6 or something which just wasn’t good enough.

“We bowled really well on a pretty docile pitch and then in the second innings we showed a bit of fight, but ideally one [of] myself, Jack or Denners goes and gets a big hundred there and if that had happened you never know, but definitely the feeling in the dressing room is that the first innings has cost us.

“It was a case of trying to bat the day if you can and try and take it an hour at a time, but runs are really important. If you get past them you never know, but credit to them, they bowled really well and really straight and unintentionally we ended up scoring a lot slower than we’d planned to.

“I thought Rob Yates batted brilliantly for them and he showed in passages that he didn’t score very quickly and he absorbed pressure. He also showed that when you get to 70 you’ve got to turn those into big hundred and fifties.

“We’ve played well in the last few games and we played well against Surrey but it was a one in a 100 effort for them to chase down 500. The game at Northants was fantastic as well. We’ll take a lot of confidence from the last few days and put the first day behind us.”

It has also been reported bowler Wes Agar’s Kent stay is over. He will return to Australia due to concerns over his injury.

Kent are next in County Championship action away to Essex at Chelmsford from Wednesday.