Kent captain Sam Northeast says despite falling short in a dramatic chase for victory in the final session against Gloucestershire it shows just how far his side have come since last season.

Kent declared with a first innings lead of 141 on the final afternoon of a rain-hit game in Specsavers County Championship Division 2 and despite the draw looking a foregone conclusion, the hosts managed to claim eight wickets, five of them after tea, to come close to setting up a dramatic run-chase in the final half-hour on Wednesday evening.

Despite their efforts the Gloucestershire tail held on and Kent had to settle for a draw and 12 points to stay third in the table and Northeast admitted: “The overall emotion of the team is one of disappointment, but they shouldn’t feel that way really.

“We played all the cricket in the match and I was very pleased with the effort of all my bowlers on what was a pretty flat fourth-day deck.

“They bent their backs and nearly got the result. If it wasn’t for that bit of rain in the morning we would probably have got the victory.”

He added: “We’re near at the moment, playing some good cricket and have come a long way since the end of last year. It’s an open division and we still have everything to play for.”

Kent have lost 633 overs to bad weather in their opening four Championship matches and showers at Canterbury cost the hosts nearly 100 overs on Tuesday and Wednesday combined.

Assistant coach Matt Walker admitted Kent did feel hard done by after a third weather-hit game in four, adding: “It’s hard not to feel jealous when you see other teams getting results and putting points on the board while we are off.

“The abandonment at Worcester still hurts, that was tough to take. We got five points from that but I saw a team that lost their game heavily got six points.

“You have to try to be philosophical, it’s the English summer, but sometimes you do feel hard done by and that someone is out to get us.”

He added: “The boys put a lot of hard work into this game, bowled brilliantly and batted fantastically, only to see our chances of winning it disappear with the rain.

“But there is no reason to panic, we are pleased to be getting into these good positions - we weren’t doing that last year. It shows our progression and we have to enjoy the positivity.

“We are bowling better and we have scored hundreds and put on century parnerships. If you can put three or four wins together then you’d be right up there. We just want to be able to play every day rather than sitting around playing cards and reading newspapers.

“There are a lot of positive to take from the past two games and there are no real negatives. We are frustrated not to have won, but we remain unbeaten and we’ll go to Northampton on Sunday (11am) looking to get some good weather and a result.”