Middlesex skipper Dawid Malan felt that Kent had batted and bowled better than his side on the first day of the County Championship Division Two match at Canterbury.

The visitors slumped to 54-9 in reply to Kent’s 241, as Grant Stewart (5-21) shone with the ball in the day-night fixture.

But Malan was critical of the ‘pink ball’ playing regulations, saying: “I can’t quite understand why the two divisions are using different balls.

“It’s still county cricket and we have guys out here with aspirations to play international cricket, so to have different balls seems strange as we don’t do that in red-ball cricket. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

“It was doing so much at the end there that we actually did quite well to nick a few. We’re behind in this game and we’ll have to find a way to fight our way back into it.”

Kent chose to bat after winning the toss, but slipped to 134-7 before some lower-order resistance.

James Fuller (4-86) was the pick of the Middlesex attack, but Stevie Eskinazi (25) was the only batsman to reach double figures in reply as wickets tumbled at regular intervals.

Malan, who fell for a third-ball duck to Stewart, said: “We had a really good win last week, we’re positive in our abilities to adapt and we’ll have a think about the best approach from here on.

“I thought we were competitive with the ball, we maybe let them have 60 too many, but credit Kent. Their bowlers did exceptionally well to put the ball in the right areas and they had a better day either way.”