Walker says players need to learn from poor one-day campaign

Matt Walker says Kent need to draw a line under their ill-fated one-day campaign and get back on the promotion trail when the championship season resumes at Leicester on Friday. The Spitfires were assured of finishing bottom of the South Group before their Royal London One-Day Cup campaign finished with yesterday (Wednesday’s) home clash with Essex. Kent lost six of their opening seven games and in the wake of last week’s dramatic loss at Gloucestershire, Walker said the players ‘need to take a look at themselves in the mirror.’ He said: “They need to take responsibility for their own games because there are clearly areas we need to improve on. It has been a disappointing campaign with the same mistakes being made. We need to ensure we are a lot better when the T20 comes around.” Walker added: “We’ve only got ourselves to blame. We just haven’t been good enough in key areas or put a compete package together at any stage and we’ve come unstuck. “We had good prep of eight games in Antigua, we can’t use that as an excuse.” After their early exit from the One-Day Cup, Kent now have six championship games in succession, starting with Friday’s game at Leicestershire (11am). Walker said he doesn’t plan to tinker with a red-ball team that has won their opening three matches, although he has lost Wayne Parnell and Mitch Claydon remains absent on compassionate leave. Walker said: “We’ve played good cricket in the four-day game so far. When you’ve won three games, it’s dangerous to start chopping and changing too much. “The guys are in a pretty good place, pretty happy with their form, which makes it more frustrating we haven’t managed to take that into the middle in 50-over cricket. “We’ll draw a line under it now. We have got plenty in the bank from our experience in the first month of the season to make sure we are a good side in this competition. Hopefully, we can bounce back quickly at Leicester.”