Who are the players to watch? Who’s in the squad? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What is the fixture list? Your questions answered
Head coach: Matt Walker
Captain: Sam Billings
Overseas players: Miguel Cummins (West Indies)
Players in: Miguel Cummins (Middlesex), Nathan Gilchrist (Somerset), Tawanda Muyeye
Players out: Calum Haggett (retired), Ivan Thomas (released)
Fixture list: April 8 – Northamptonshire (a); April 15 – Yorkshire (h); April 22 – Lancashire (h); April 29 – Glamorgan (a); May 6 – Yorkshire (a); May 13 – Sussex (a); May 20 – Glamorgan (h); June 3 – Northamptonshire (h); July 4 – Lancashire (a); July 11 – Sussex (h)
Remind me what happened last year?
Since their promotion to the top tier of the County Championship at the end of the 2018 season, Kent’s red-ball cricket has been terrific. Following a fourth-place finish on their return to Division One, they impressed again in the Bob Willis Trophy, collecting more bonus points than any other team in the South Group as they only narrowly missed out on a place in the Lord’s final.
Darren Stevens, who at one stage was set to be released, once again led the way with the ball: he took 29 wickets at 15.58 apiece. Alongside him, Matt Milnes and Harry Podmore – both products of the club’s shrewd recruitment – shared 34 scalps between them, following on from their success in 2019.
With the bat, Jack Leaning and Jordan Cox shattered all kinds of records in putting Sussex’s bowling attack to the sword at Canterbury: Leaning, in his first season at the club, ended unbeaten on 220, with Cox, an England Under-19s international, announcing himself onto the scene with a double hundred of his own.
Heino Kuhn and Zak Crawley also reached three figures during the shortened red-ball season – a productive time for the county’s batsmen.
Overseas signing Miguel Cummins
What’s happened over the winter?
Daniel Bell-Drummond has replaced Joe Denly as the club’s vice-captain to Sam Billings, and will therefore lead Kent into the start of the season, with the England man away at the Indian Premier League with Delhi Capitals.
Bell-Drummond is rapidly approaching 300 first-team appearances for Kent and has featured as stand-in skipper on 22 occasions to date. Most recently, he captained in last season’s Vitality Blast, winning five of his eight matches in charge while Billings was in England’s bio-secure bubble. He was also the tournament's leading run-scorer with 423 runs.
Off the field, the club announced losses of £217,351 for the financial year up to November 2020, with an income fall of nearly £2million. Following swift action, however, and thanks to the generosity of the county’s members, the impact appears to have been tempered. Kent were quick to make use of the furlough scheme at the beginning of lockdown. The donation of membership fees by many of the club’s supporters helped to minimise subsequent redundancies.
Who’s arrived and who’s left?
To strengthen an already potent seam attack, Miguel Cummins arrives as an overseas player for the first eight County Championship matches of the campaign. He impressed during a stint with Middlesex, taking five wickets in a Bob Willis Trophy draw against his new club, before that arrangement was brought to an end by the termination of Kolpak registrations at the end of 2020.
“It’s great to be joining an ambitious team like Kent and I am certainly looking forward to bowling at Canterbury again,” he said.
"It’s also fantastic to be joining a county with a proud history of West Indian players and coaches in the past, especially with another fellow Barbadian in John Shepherd being a big part of Kent’s history.”
He joins former Somerset seamer Nathan Gilchrist, who arrived on loan in 2020 but has now signed on a permanent basis. The release of Ivan Thomas was unfortunate for a talented seamer whose recent years have been disrupted by serious injuries. He only played twice for the club after September 2018 due to a cruciate knee ligament injury.
Who will be the key men in 2020?
Daniel Bell-Drummond: In charge for the first portion of the season in the absence of Sam Billings, Bell-Drummond’s fruitful T20 Blast campaign last year followed a more mediocre red-ball run: he scored 185 runs in five games, averaging just 23.12 in the process.
Kent look well set to compete at the top end of their County Championship group, and a captain at the top of his own game will certainly help in that regard.
Joe Denly: No longer part of England’s plans, it would be little surprise if Denly began the season on the front foot – he made 89 in his solitary Bob Willis Trophy innings last year.
With England due to face New Zealand at the start of June, Crawley could also be available – bio-secure bubble permitting – for at least the first four rounds of matches.
Darren Stevens: The ageless allrounder shows no signs of letting up. He struggled with the bat last year but was as menacing as ever with the new ball in his hands.
And with seven four-day games lined up before the end of May, the 44-year-old – who will turn 45 on the second day at Sophia Gardens – will be as great a threat as ever.
One to watch?
Jordan Cox burst onto the scene last year with his unbeaten 238 against Sussex, so he is an obvious answer. Watch out for Hamidullah Qadri, though.
The offspinner, Afghanistan-born but a former England Under-19s teammate of Cox, is still only 20 and is now in his second year at Kent after joining from Derbyshire. His first season was curtailed by the pandemic, and so this campaign represents an intriguing opportunity for a talented youngster, especially as talk continues around the future of English spin bowling.
What can we expect from this team this season?
Expect Kent to go far. A solid top order alongside a raft of quality seamers, not to mention a stable of excellent wicketkeepers. Their red-ball cricket has been on a permanent upward trajectory since 2018 and there is no reason why that should come to a halt now.
Subscribe today and receive The Cricketer’s centenary issue – six issues for £19.21. Click here
OTHER TEAM GUIDES
Welcome to www.thecricketer.com - the online home of the world’s oldest cricket magazine. Breaking news, interviews, opinion and cricket goodness from every corner of our beautiful sport, from village green to national arena.