Kentish Express Ashford & District
Kent’s last-day defeat was a ‘hammer blow’
Kent cricket
Jamie Clifford has admitted Kent’s championship defeat to Worcester at New Road was the pivotal moment in their unsuccessful 2017 promotion campaign.
Set to chase a victory target of 399 on the final day, the hosts got there with four wickets to spare and went on to win the Specsavers County Championship, Division 2 title ahead of Nottinghamshire.
Kent finished fifth 47 points behind Notts and chief executive Mr Clifford described that defeat on the afternoon of June 22 as a ‘hammer blow’ to their promotion prospects.
He said: “We hoped and expected to get promoted to Division 1 (at the start of the season).
“We hadn’t quite put to bed in our minds the thought that we should have been in Division 1 already (Kent finished runners-up in 2016 when only champions Essex went up and were then denied promotion when the ECB decided to reprieve Hampshire rather than promote Kent after Durham’s demotion from Division 1 for breaching financial regulations).
“There was that lingering ‘we still feel we’re good enough to be in Division 1’ feeling and, therefore, we’re going to go through this season and succeed in the championship.”
Kent won their opening three matches and four of the first five but they failed to win another game and Mr Clifford felt their poor performance in the Royal London One-Day competition was a factor.
He said: “I think it was a major issue that the block form of the (Royal London) one-day competition arrived at that moment because we were riding a wave and then played really poorly in that competition. I think that competition not going well then did impact on what came next.
“The killer day (in the championship season) was when Worcestershire chased down 400 on the final day. It was a massive moment in our season, for them to get that total on a wearing pitch.
“I don’t think we bowled particularly well. There was plenty of character there but that Worcester defeat was a bit of a hammer blow.”
Mr Clifford felt defeats to Gloucestershire and Surrey at Canterbury probably cost Kent qualification for the knock-out stages of the NatWest T20 Blast but revealed that the county have already started working on plans for next season.
That includes which wickets at The Spitfire Ground St Lawrence to use, after skipper Sam Northeast suggested the county had not been able to get pitches to suit the way they like to play in the NatWest T20 Blast.