Middlesex captain Steven Finn paid tribute to the efforts of Paul Stirling following their Royal London One-Day Cup win over Kent.

Stirling hit 125 off 115 balls as Middlesex piled up 313-9, before dismissing Kent for 243 at Radlett.

And Finn said: “Stirlo was excellent – the pace at which the ball was coming off his bat was ridiculous at times. We know he’s a world-class player in this format, he’s proved that on the world stage and we’ve seen him do that for us.

“It’s important to have people at the other end that can support the person who’s in and we had that. The guys who were in with ‘Stirlo’ rotated the strike and still scored at a decent rate, so the pressure wasn’t all on him.

“There are still areas for us to improve on – we don’t think we’ve cracked it after one win. Today was an outstanding effort but now we go to three good one-day sides in their own backyard and we’re going to have to be on the money.”

Heino Kuhn (90) top scored for Kent, as Tom Helm (4-49) proved the pick of the home attack.

Kent’s Calum Haggett added: “It would have been nice for Heino to get his hundred because he batted so well and unfortunately I got run out. I’ve got the turning circle of an oil tanker, so I was sprinting as much as I could, but I was out by quite a bit.

“We’ve got good bowlers like Mitch (Claydon), although he didn’t bowl at the end and Matt Henry, who takes wickets, but it’d be nice to go better at the start and put real pressure on teams.

“Thankfully we’ve got a bit of time now to train hard and put a few things right. I don’t think it’s that much but it’s about being co-ordinated in training and hopefully we’ll be in a position to get some victories, which are much-needed.”