Walker praises his side after Essex win
Coach Matt Walker had nothing but praise for his side after they beat Essex by five wickets in Chelmsford.
He said: “This was the objective from the start of this campaign – to qualify from the pool and even better get a home quarter-final. Credit to the boys, they’ve played brilliantly in this tournament and we deserve everything we’ve got.
“There are lots of different games, different ways we’ve won games, but a lot of really brave and courageous cricket played at times. When you do that, and things click and you start believing and get on a winning roll and things start to happen for you.
“It’s nice to come here knowing we’d already qualified, but equally we wanted to push for a home quarter-final. I thought our run chase was masterful.
“Whichever way we’ve done it in white-ball this season we’ve done it well. We’ve chased well, we’ve defended very well. You have to do that if you’re going to progress in this competitions, you can’t rely on one way of doing things. To come here is never easy and to chase down 200 is a great effort.
“I loved the way the boys played tonight, it was brave and positive and everyone stood up – and we won the last over. We’re becoming that complete team and we back ourselves to get things done – the confidence in the way we bowled and the way we batted. That fills a team with great belief. We can move forward in this competition knowing we have both sets of skills.”
Kent play Lancashire in the last eight at the Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence next Thursday, looking for revenge after losing a tied knockout game on wickets lost in 2015.
Walker said: “I remember it well. It was a great game, but we finished on the wrong side of it unfortunately. Every team you meet in a quarter-final are going to be very tough to beat, but we’re on our home patch and that’s brilliant for the club, brilliant for the fans.
“It’s hopefully a chance to get a good result this year. We’ll need to be at our best to beat them as you do when you get to this stage of the competition.”
Kent move on to Leicestershire on Sunday in the Championship, and Walker said: “No, there’s no chance to celebrate unfortunately. We’ll try and get our heads down tonight, have some practice on Saturday, get used to the red-ball again and go again on Sunday.
“It’s a quick turnaround into red-ball cricket and it’ll be an even quicker turn-around into a quarter-final. It’s never easy to get yourself properly prepared, but it is what it is. No rest for the wicked as they say.”