Matt Walker: We were ruthless
Sunday 23rd April 2017
Kent head coach Matt Walker was delighted to continue the perfect start to the season but warned there are tougher tests to come.
After wins against Gloucestershire and Sussex to start the season, a 169-run home win against Derbyshire put Kent into second spot in the Specsavers County Championship table.
The 43-year-old former Kent batsman said: “We targeted at the turn of the year that we needed to start the season better as we haven’t done that in the past five or six years, so to get three from three is great.
“This was a different type of game to the previous two, a sporting wicket and we didn’t have this one all our own way, but we’ve battled through it and come out with more good points in the bank.
“We wanted to improve out resilience and ruthlessness as a team and I’m not sure that last year we would have fronted up as well as we have in this type of game.
“We were up against it on a number of occasions over the three days and somehow, somewhere, people stood up and were counted.
“That character has come from a few different sources in the past three weeks, but today it was the turn of Stevo, James Harris and Adam Rouse.
“Then, when we get a grip on the game, certainly with the ball, we tend to not let go – and that’s what impressed me the most today.
“We now turn our attention to the white-ball game and the FGS Plant pre-season tour was helpful in our approach to 50-over cricket.”
The focus now switches to 50-over action with the visit of Hampshire in the Royal London One-Day Cup on Thursday (27 April).