Matt Walker hailed Kent's ruthless streak after they romped to their third Specsavers County Championship Division 2 win on the spin after overcoming Derbyshire by 169 runs inside three days.

Kent set the visitors an improbable target of 409 for victory on the third afternoon but, to the delight of head coach Walker, needed less than two sessions to claim the final 10 wickets with four overs remaining of the penultimate day, to claim 21 points and keep pace with leaders Nottinghamshire.

On-loan James Harris notched 4/56 while Darren Stevens continued his superb start to the season with three second-innings scalps to add to his six in the first innings and take him to 22 for the season so far.

Walker - unbeaten since taking over from Jimmy Adams in January - said: “We targeted at the turn of the year that we needed to start the season better as we haven’t done that in the past five or six years, so to get three from three is great.

“This was a different type of game to the previous two, a sporting wicket and we didn’t have this one all our own way, but we’ve battled through it and come out with more good points in the bank."

He revealed: "We wanted to improve our resilience and ruthlessness as a team and I’m not sure that last year we would have fronted up as well as we have in this type of game.

“We were up against it on a number of occasions over the three days and somehow, somewhere, people stood up and were counted.

"That character has come from a few different sources in the past three weeks, but today it was the turn of Stevo, James Harris and Adam Rouse.

"When we get a grip on the game, certainly with the ball, we tend to not let go – and that’s what impressed me the most.”

On the opening morning Daniel Bell-Drummond (38) and Sean Dickson (41) gave the hosts a perfect platform after being asked to bat first, however 83 without loss became 88-4 with Joe Denly falling for a golden duck and Will Gidman also departing without scoring.

Sam Northeast (32) and Stevens (17) steadied the ship but Kent needed a vital 41 from debutant Wayne Parnell to reach 193-7 from 58 overs.

Adam Rouse (29) and an unbeaten 27 from Harris steered their side towards 250 and Matt Coles was last man to go for 13, falling to Will Davis (4/75) as Kent were 259 all-out.

Parnell and Stevens gave Kent an early foothold by reducing the visitors to 4-2 and though Shiv Thakor (44) and Wayne Madsen (56) got their side back on track, 113-3 became 140-9 with imperious Stevens making the most of Saturday’s conditions to collect 6-47 as Derbyshire were ousted for 159.

Kent toiled with the bat second time around and were 80-6 with Bell-Drummond’s 23 the highest top-order contribution, however Stevens came to the rescue with a wonderful knock of 90 from 86 balls which featured 15 fours and a six.

He shared a stand of 90 with Rouse who went on to get even closer to three figures than the all-rounder, adding another 83 with Harris (32) and joining James Tredwell (9) to steer Kent past 300 before being left high and dry on a career-best 95 not out when Tredwell holed-out on Sunday lunchtime.

It all left the visitors needing a record 409 which seemed a mile off when skipper Billy Godleman went for four to add to his first innings duck.

Thakor and Luis Reece also went cheaply and when Matt Coles trapped Madsen for 32 to make it 76-4 Kent smelled blood.

Harris ousted Daryn Smit to make it 78-5 and though Gary Wilson stood firm for nearly two and a half hours, nobody could stick with him and after he was ninth out for 97 Coles dismissed Davis with the total on 239 as Kent completed another convincing win.