van Jaarsveld to skipper Spitfires against the Sharks

BATSMAN Martin van Jaarsveld (pictured)will captain the Kent Spitfires in tomorrow“s Twenty20 Cup match with the Sussex Sharks at Canterbury. The South African takes over from Rob Key, who has joined up with the England squad ahead of the T20 World Cup.

The Spitfires have won two of their three Twenty20 matches this season and face a Sharks side that has recorded two wins and two defeats from their four matches.

Kent“s Director of Cricket, Graham Ford, is full of admiration for their opponents: ‘Sussex are an impressive side. They enjoyed a very good 50-over competition and are always very competitive. They have a couple of T20 specialists in their line-up and always play with lots of energy. They will be lively in the field so it will be a very tough outing but we are playing some good Twenty20 cricket at the moment.“

With Key away on international duty, van Jaarsveld will captain the side and Ford is pleased to have such a good deputy: ‘Rob is a very important man in our set-up so we will miss him as he is a quality player and a good leader. Still, we have a good management group and Martin has stepped up and captained the side superbly on a number of occasions so we are lucky that he can fulfil the role so admirably.“

Young batsman Sam Northeast comes into the 12-man Spitfires squad in place of Key. The Kent 12 is as follows: van Jaarsveld (C), Denly, Northeast, Jones (W), Stevens, Kemp, Hockley, Mahmood, Tredwell, McLaren, Cook, Joseph
Gates open at 1.00pm, for the big game, and play starts at 3.00pm. Tickets are still available. You can book yours online at www.kentccc.com or by calling 01227 456886. Tickets will also be available on the gate.

Everyone who attends the match will be entitled to a free ticket to the third day of the LV County Championship Match against Derbyshire on Sunday, August 2.

Picture courtesy of www.arpics.co.uk