The cricketer known as Roy of the Rovers put the boot into Hampshire's Twenty20 Cup hopes at Beckenham last night.

World Cup winner Andrew Symonds is nicknamed 'Roy' after Roy Race, the comic book hero of Melchester Rovers FC.

And he lived up to his star billing on his and Kent's Twenty20 Cup debut.

The ECB want the competition to help cricket rival football in the popularity stakes and Symonds did the cause no harm at all in north Kent yesterday.

The Australian smashed an unbeaten 96 off just 37 balls as Hampshire suffered their first defeat in the competition by six wickets with a full eight overs to spare.

Wasim Akram had got Hampshire off to the perfect start as Kent began their response to the visitors' disappointing 145-6 on a good batting wicket

Peter Trego was trapped leg before with the second ball of the Kent innings but poor Ed Giddins was humiliated by Symonds.

John Crawley was forced to withdraw the former Sussex man from the attack after Symonds smashed 24 runs off the over, a demolition job that included successive sixes and three fours.

Symonds cleared the batters' dug out in 'cow corner' for the first of his three maximum hits and then cleared the long on boundary with the next ball.

The Kent fans in the 5,000 plus crowd enjoyed reminding Giddins of his horror over when he retreated to the third man boundary, but it was no laughing matter for Hampshire.

Giddins and Alan Mullally were two of the heroes of the Twenty20 win against Sussex at the Rose Bowl, but Mullally was also asked to 'take a blow' after bowling just one over. It cost 21 runs, including a six over 'cow corner' from the left handed James Tredwell.

Wasim gave Hampshire brief consolation when he uprooted Tredwell's middle stump with a trademark yorker.

But Symonds restored Kent's dominance by smashing Shaun Udal's second ball into Crystal Palace's training HQ, a plot of land adjacent to the Beckenham ground that was used by Kent for the first time since 1954 on Sunday.

It was in the same over, the sixth, that Symonds reached his fifty from just 16 balls and after 23 minutes at the crease -a Twenty20 record.

Umpires Nigel Cowley and John Holder, two former Hampshire players, were working up a sweat with all the boundary signalling on one of the hottest days of the year.

But at least Hamblin restored some pride by taking two wickets in three balls in the tenth over.

Mark Ealham had had the temerity to hit Wasim for a six over long off but he was caught by Crawley at short extra cover and Matthew Walker was out for a second ball duck, caught at deep mid wicket by Dimi Mascarenhas.

Meanwhile, Symonds proceeded to 75 from 27 balls and in Hamblin's next over he clinched victory with three successive boundaries.

Before yesterday's round of games Somerset's Keith Dutch had the record Twenty20 score of 70.

Leicestershire's Brad Hodge, another Australian, now tops the list - he scored a match-winning 97 against Yorkshire yesterday.

But Symonds would surely have scored Twenty20 cricket's first hundred if Kent captain David Fulton had opted to bat first.

Instead, he inserted Hampshire, who failed to set a big enough target after losing four wickets for just five runs in eight balls midway throught their innings.

Hamblin (38 from 33 balls) and Simon Katich (59 not out from 52) put on 76 in ten overs for the second wicket before Hamblin was run out as he attempted a quick single to mid-wicket.

Mascarenhas nicked his first ball behind and a brilliant diving catch by Tredwell at mid wicket gave Matthew Dennington, a National League debutant 24 hours earlier, Crawley's scalp.

Will Kendall was also out first ball, bowled as he prodded forward to Ealham to complete the collapse.

At least Katich gave Hampshire something to cheer about, stroking seven boundaries as he scored the county's first fifty in the event.

Katich reached his half century during his 44-run stand with Wasim, who made 24 from 20 balls before he was caught at deep mid wicket.

But it was Symonds' day.

"The ball came on really well, I just swung the bat as hard as I could," he said, after scoring 14 fours and three sixes during his 45 minutes at the crease.

If Symonds carries on like this the Twenty20 Cup may have to be renamed the Twenty10 Cup.