Prolonged Kent resistance eventually counted for nothing as Yorkshire's persistent attack mopped up the seven wickets required to secure a 172-run Specsavers County Championship win at Canterbury.
Facing an improbable victory target of 384, and after their brave rearguard action at the start of the day, the hosts did well to take the match into its final
session before seamer Ben Coad mopped up the tail with a season's best six for 52.
The fourth day started with a stoical fourth-wicket stand between Daniel Bell-Drummond and Fred Klaassen which frustrated the Tykes' attack throughout the opening session in adding 54 runs inside 34 overs either side of lunch.
Yorkshire finally broke through soon after the resumption when Klassen, the 26-year-old nightwatchman making his championship debut, steered Duanne Olivier to second slip to end a two-and-a-half hour, 110-ball stay for 13.
Hampered by the loss of Tim Bresnan to a calf injury – the former England seamer slipped over when delivering his first ball of the day and limped off after completing only two overs – Yorkshire's attack continued to chip away to pick up three more wickets in the mid-session.
Interim Kent captain Heino Kuhn, who has one first-class 50 to his name this season, went for a seven-ball duck when nicking to second slip after an ugly, low-handed defensive prod.
Bell-Drummond, who offered two chances that were dropped in the cordon by Adam Lyth, moved past 5,000 first-class career runs during his 170-minute stay, and was nine short of a battling 50 when he was lbw to Steven Patterson.
Then, after being checked out for concussion following a fearsome blow on the helmet from an Olivier bouncer, Kent's first innings century-maker Ollie Robinson drove a slower ball away-swinger from Ben Coad to Gary Ballance at cover to make it 142 for seven.
Alex Blake and Harry Podmore resisted for 22 overs either side of tea until the
introduction of off-spinner Jack Leaning accounted for Blake leg before when prodding outside the line of an arm-ball.
With 24 overs remaining, Yorkshire took the second new ball through Coad and Olivier, only for Podmore and Matt Milnes to continue Kent's defiance into the final hour of the match.
Soon after, Coad ran one up the slope to pluck out Podmore's middle stump for 29, scored in a shade under two hours.
In his next over Coad had last man Mitch Claydon caught at short leg to secure victory with 15.1 overs to spare.
Coad led the bowling plaudits with six wickets in clinching Yorkshire's second win of the campaign that lifts them to second in the table. After their second defeat on returning to Division One, Kent slip to fifth.
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