Paul Bent is a former English cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er who played first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 and List A cricket for Worcestershire

Worcestershire County Cricket Club

Worcestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Worcestershire...

 between the mid-1980s and early 1990s.

Bent made his first-class debut against Cambridge University

Cambridge University Cricket Club

Cambridge University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team. It now plays all but one of its first-class cricket matches as part of the Cambridge University Centre of Cricketing Excellence , which includes Anglia Ruskin University...

 in June 1985, scoring 14 in his only innings.
He was then confined to Second XI appearances for three years, until he was given a short run of games in the first team in July and August 1988. These included 31 and 50 (his maiden first-class half-century) against Yorkshire

Yorkshire County Cricket Club

Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....

,
as well as the highest score of his short List A career, 36 in a Refuge Assurance League game against Sussex

Sussex County Cricket Club

Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Sussex. The club was founded as a successor to Brighton Cricket Club which was a representative of the county of Sussex as a...

.

The following summer, 1989, was the best of Bent's Worcestershire career. Although he had only a single (and unsuccessful) one-day

One-day cricket

Limited overs cricket, also known as one-day cricket and in a slightly different context as List A cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed in one day, whereas Test and first-class matches can take up to five days to complete...

 outing, he played 13 first-class games and scored 530 runs at an average

Batting average

Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...

 of just over 24. This was helped by a career-best innings of 144 against Kent

Kent County Cricket Club

Kent County Cricket Club is one of the 18 first class county county cricket clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the county of Kent...

 at the end of July, in which he shared century partnerships with both Chris Tolley

Chris Tolley

Chris Tolley is a retired professional cricketer who played for Worcestershire and Nottinghamshire. In 2002 Tolley was appointed County Academy Director for Nottinghamshire.-External links:*...

 and Graeme Hick

Graeme Hick

Graeme Ashley Hick MBE is a Zimbabwean-born cricketer who played 65 Test matches and 120 One Day Internationals for England. He played county cricket for Worcestershire for his entire English domestic career, a period of well over twenty years, and in 2008 he surpassed Graham Gooch's record for...

.

Bent never again played such a significant part in a season: he played no more List A games, and made only seven first-class appearances in 1990 and eight in his final year of 1991. He hit one more century, scoring exactly 100 not out

Not out

In cricket, a batsman will be not out if he comes out to bat in an innings and has not been dismissed by the end of the innings. One may similarly describe a batsman as not out while the innings is still in progress...

 in an opening partnership of 225 with captain Tim Curtis

Tim Curtis

Tim Curtis is a former England cricketer. A right-handed batsman, Curtis was a prolific scorer for Worcestershire and county captain between 1992 and 1995...

 against Lancashire

Lancashire County Cricket Club

Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...

 at Stanley Park

Stanley Park, Blackpool

Stanley Park is a municipal park in the town of Blackpool on the Fylde coast in the county of Lancashire, England. It is the largest park in the town, bounded by a roughly circular perimeter of 2.2 miles and covering an area of...

 in August 1991.

After the end of his Worcestershire career, Bent played minor counties cricket for Herefordshire

Herefordshire County Cricket Club

Herefordshire County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Herefordshire and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy...

in 1992, and unlike in his first-class days proved quite effective as a bowler, taking three or four wickets in an innings on a number of occasions.