Rob Key’s Blog – 11th June

I'm now looking forward to our Friends Life t20 match at Beckenham. Every game at Beckenham is a special occasion for me, as I was born and grew up there. My parents still live there, and I have a lot of friends in the area – especially those I have played a lot of hockey with over the years at Beckenham Hockey Club.

I may live now with my own family near Canterbury, but Beckenham is my home ‘town’ and apart from being able to call in to see my parents – and stay with them during games here – there is always an extra incentive for me to play well when we come here for Kent matches.

Games against our close rivals Surrey have also been a feature of previous Twenty20 contests at Worsley Bridge Road, and that is only fair given that Kent Cricket’s northern headquarters here is so near to the Surrey border. Indeed, these matches at Beckenham are the ultimate in border skirmishes!

We will welcome Surrey’s players, management and supporters to Beckenham once again on Sunday, and our own Kent fans of course, and I hope that everyone enjoys a cracking game of Twenty20 cricket – and we see an improvementin the weather. We are both teams with ambitions to do very well in this season’s Friends Life t20 competition, and so this is a big game for both the Kent Spitfires and the Surrey Lions.

Personally, I have also always enjoyed batting and playing cricket on the type of fast, bouncy pitches that have traditionally been produced at Beckenham. Good pitches produce good cricket, and in the 14 matches I have previously played here for Kent – 12 Twenty20s, one List A match and one first-class match – that has been a real feature of those contests between bat and ball.

Can I also remind Kent supporters that we have three more home Friends Life t20 group matches coming up soon. They are all at Canterbury, starting with another Sunday afternoon’s fixture against Hampshire (3pm) on Sunday 24th June, and then two floodlit matches against Middlesex (Tuesday June 26, 7pm) and Essex (Friday July 6, 7pm).

The match against Middlesex Panthers on June 26 is also preceded at the St Lawrence Ground by an international Twenty20 between England Women and India Women, starting at 3.10pm.

All the best,

Rob