Jimmy Adams says he thinks Kent’s players now have the self belief to go with their talent and is backing them to challenge for trophies this season.

Kent reached the quarter-finals of both the NatWest T20 Blast and Royal London One Day Cup last summer and having added overseas duo Kagiso Rabada and Tom Latham, expectations are higher than for some time at Canterbury.

Head coach Adams says the players sense that too and he believes the squad are now developing the mental strength to be even more competitive in all formats.

He said: “All of them (the players) have talent and ability but we want them to get that understanding of how you win games.That’s an ongoing process but we have made significant strides.

“The guys are at a stage where they have a lot more self belief coming from last year.
“They are starting to see what we (as coaches) have seen in the past couple of years and, if we can have that shared vision and they keep putting in the hard work and the mindsets are where they should be, then I see no reason why we shouldn’t be expecting the team to win trophies.

“The mindset of the players has got stronger over the last couple of years and I’m hoping that can be translated into results.

“I do believe that, with what we have talent wise, if the thinking is right, if it’s strong enough and consistent enough, then we will see the results and we will be winning things, or winning more (games) than we have done in the past.”

Adams says Kent have enjoyed an excellent pre-season but concedes they need to improve ‘right across the board’ in four-day cricket.

The county won just four matches in Division 2 last summer – only one of which was at home – and there is only one promotion place available this summer.

Adams said: “We were pretty disappointed with our inconsistency in red ball cricket last year and that is something we have definitely targeted, to improve upon this year with the hope of becoming the only team to come out of this group (division).

“It is a realistic target. It will take a lot of hard work from the lads but that is pretty much where we’ve set the bar."

Full story in this week's Kentish Gazette