Kent's difficult year soothed by T20 Blast triumph

SAM MORSHEAD AT EDGBASTON: Whichever county ended up celebrating at Edgbaston on Saturday night would have had their own story of overcoming adversity to tell. But this was Kent's. Because they are T20 Blast champions

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It has been a difficult year for Kent County Cricket Club.

Redundancies, wage cuts, pandemic-hit revenues, miserable County Championship and Royal London Cup form, and Covid-19 disruptions have combined to impede progress at Canterbury.

Members have been at times dissatisfied by performances on the field - where their team did not win a red-ball game in 2021 until the season had lost all relevance - and at times at odds with their club captain, Sam Billings. 

Twenty percent of jobs at the St Lawrence Ground were placed at risk of redundancy 12 months ago, while the club had to contend with a downturn in income of £2million as its ticketing, merchandising, conferencing and events revenue streams all dried up at once in the wake of the novel coronavirus.

This season, the first-team squad spent two weeks in isolation because of a Covid outbreak, and were still required to fulfil fixtures where other teams were spared. 

Kent are by no means the only sports club to have had to place the vast majority of their staff on furlough; they are not the only county to have had their competitivity diluted by the virus; and they are of course not the only small business to have been left to stare disheartedly at balance sheets.

But it is Kent we are discussing tonight.

Because Kent are T20 Blast champions. 

^{Matt Milnes celebrates a wicket in the final against Somerset}

The standout side across a drawn-out competition which began in early June and did not end until leaves were beginning to yellow, the Spitfires took what little momentum was left from the group stage and quarter-final into Finals Day at Edgbaston, and served up a lesson in short-format cricket.

It did not matter that they faced, in Sussex Sharks and Somerset, two of the most impressive T20 units around.

It did not matter that - thanks in part to the haphazard schedule of 2021 - they were unable to call on star overseas quick Adam Milne.

It did not matter that in the final they found themselves bogged down with the bat and then struggling to hold onto the leash as Tom Abell and Will Smeed began to wriggle and fidget.

Because Kent had a plan. They had control. They knew how to win.

An unfashionable mix of bright young things, seasoned batsmen, durable seamers and the grandad of county cricket, Darren Stevens, the Spitfires in 2021 became a blend worth much more than the sum of their parts.

Fred Klaassen and Matt Milnes have taken 41 wickets between them, both averaging below 20. Both have furthered their own careers and enhanced their short-form value considerably over the lifespan of this tournament and can expect Hundred contracts in 2022.

Only two players scored more runs in this year’s Blast than Daniel Bell-Drummond, and no one passed fifty more often.

Zak Crawley responded to his England struggles with 300-plus runs at a strike rate nudging 150, hinting at bright possibilities in the international white-ball arena in the not-too-distant future.

^{Jordan Cox made an excellent half-century}

And then there was Jordan Cox, a diminutive, chirpy presence with the bat, who at 20 years old returned a season’s haul of 367 runs at 52, including a match-winning 58 in the final (not to mention one of the most spectacular pieces of fielding this event has witnessed in its 18-year history).

Between them, under the captaincy of the thoughtful, eloquent, restless Sam Billings, this group wrestled themselves and their county free from the difficulty, melancholy, dispute and despair of the past 12 months - if only for a few hours in autumnal Birmingham.

This is where the T20 Blast - and white-ball cricket in general - can offer such important relief. 

Because this competition has always had a happy habit for levelling the county game up. 

It is incumbent on Kent to improve in the red-ball arena in 2022. And there will no doubt once again be challenges over player availability, squad depth, and finances as the club looks to rebuild post-Covid.

But there will surely be a spring in the step of every member, every player, every coach and every administrator as they look towards next season because of what happened this: just four defeats in 17 games, and the first major silverware since the Twenty20 Cup of 2007.

Whichever county ended up celebrating at Edgbaston on Saturday night would have had their own story of overcoming adversity to tell. But this was Kent’s.

Because they are T20 Blast champions.