• Kent 345-5 v Yorkshire
• Robert Key run out on 97
Reputations are already proving hard to live up to for Yorkshire in their quest for a quick return to the top flight of the County Championship.
Castigated by their chairman, Colin Graves, for under-performing at the end of last year's relegation season, they were nominated as the most talentedcounty squad in the land by the same man at the club's annual season-opening lunch on Wednesday. They have his backing "200%", said Graves, whose fine line in hyperbole is matched only by his efforts to avert Yorkshire from financial disaster. One of Geoff Boycott's first public utterances as president last month was to demand a tilt for the Division One title in 2013, to coincide with the club's 150th anniversary.
No pressure, then. And no wonder the recently appointed coach Jason Gillespie, returning to Headingley following two seasons as a player, was keen to play things down when he took to the same stage, preferring to concentrate on two buzz phrases for the summer: fun and consistency. As one wag responded, look where consistency got them last season.
Thursday was not much fun at all on a pitch of great consistency which was a credit to the groundsman Andy Fogarty, whose preparation was interrupted by an unseasonal snow flurry a little over 24 hours before the start. But Yorkshire's attack misfired, as their captain, Andrew Gale, acknowledged: "It's the first day of the season; ideally you want to have a great first day. It hasn't gone to plan but by no means is it the end of the world. There is a lot of time left in this game, and it's the first game of 16."
Robert Key, the one constant in a revamped Kent top order, played sublimely. His only error of judgment in an otherwise flawless innings of 97 proved fatal: a cleanly struck drive off Adil Rashid provided Gale with ample time to effect a direct hit from mid-off.
Successes for Yorkshire's three England-capped bowlers Ryan Sidebottom, Rashid (two) and Ajmal Shahzad all came after a fruitless first session. Sidebottom took the pitch out of the equation with a perfectly-executed yorker which uprooted Scott Newman's middle stump, Rashid snared Ben Harmison via an edge, and then pinned another debutant Michael Powell leg-before late on. Shahzad's reward for an impressive spell with the second new ball was the dismissal of Brendan Nash, the West Indian recently recruited as Kent's overseas player, snapped up low by Anthony McGrath at second slip.
It was a day of new beginnings, and there was a discernible difference to Rashid's approach to the crease following winter work alongside the former England spinner Jack Birkenshaw. The bustle has slowed to a walk, accentuating the loop in his delivery, flattened by a high volume of limited-overs cricket and a low level of confidence in 2011.