Walker excited by Hundred

Kent head coach Matt Walker has welcomed The Hundred competition as an exciting addition to the cricketing calendar.

Walker was recently unveiled as the assistant coach of the Oval Invincibles – set to represent Kent and Surrey – alongside Vikram Solanki.

While understanding the scepticism among some fans, the 45-year-old insists he is relishing the new challenge. He said: “It (his coaching role) has been in the pipeline for a little bit. Those sort of things take a little bit of time to sort out I guess.

“There’s a lot of negativity around it unfortunately, which is a shame. I understand some of the reasons why but I’m certainly looking forward to it. “It’s a different challenge and you’re working with good players, different players, different coaches so from a personal point of view I’m very excited.”

An intriguing aspect to the new tournament will be the introduction of a player draft, seeing teams select from a pool of players.

The draft takes place on October 20 and will be broadcast live on Sky Sports and BBC.

Walker added: “It’s now about trying to work out the players you want and that fit into certain categories and trying to balance the squad out as to how Tom Moody (head coach) wants it.”

Walker is hoping to see some his Kent players involved in the draft, with Joe Denly and Sam Billings having been overlooked by the Oval franchise in favour of Surrey’s Jason Roy and Tom Curran as the two icon players.