KENT CRICKET: COACH ADAMS ADMITS CLUB HAVE UNDER-PERFORMED IN CHAMPIONSHIP

Head coach Jimmy Adams says he won’t use Kent’s white ball success to ‘cover up’ for their Championship failings at the end of another disappointing campaign. With his fourth season at the helm in the books, Adams is genuinely excited about the prospects for 2016 but accepts optimism around the future is tempered by the club’s poor four-day showings. While the disappointment of quarter-final exits in T20 and One-Day cricket this summer still stings Adams, it is Kent’s record of 15 wins in 62 Championship games under the former West Indies captain which is at the forefront of his thoughts. He said: “We have underachieved in fourday cricket across the board – there are no two ways about it. We have a deepseeded desire to represent ourselves better than we have shown.” In April, Adams targeted eight wins from their 16 games to help ensure Kent’s promotion from LV= County Championship, Division 2 but four wins and a 161-point haul was 93 short of the second promotion spot to Division 1. He added: “Make no mistake, I share everyone’s desire to get up to Division 1 in four-day cricket. “I have enjoyed our development in the shorter formats but want to see us tangibly moving forward towards Division 1 cricket. “We found the blueprint towards the end of the season but we left it far too late. “We have to look at the season in separate portions. At one point I thought we were playing the best cricket in the country. If you’d said that two years ago, I doubt anyone would have believed you. We have an aching sense of disappointment at not going further than the quarter-finals in the shorter forms. We have a squad capable of going beyond that stage.” Adams has another year on his contract but would love to stay longer, adding: “Kent fans can definitely be optimistic.”