Sam Northeast says Kent need to pick themselves up quickly and turn their form around in time to book a place at NatWest T20 Blast Finals Day.

Northeast was annoyed by last weekend’s 51-run capitulation in the Royal London One-Day Cup against Lancashire, who also visit on Saturday in the T20 quarter-final at The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence (2.30pm).

He said: “We were disappointed with our own performance in the last game. They have a good squad but if our batting unit had found their straps, we should have chased down 250 on that pitch.

“There were some brilliant performances but it’s the result that matters. It was a bit of a tame performance until Alex Blake came in and showed what was possible.

“From that perspective, it was one of the most annoying performances from us this year.
“It was an eye-opener for us in terms of how we now want to play.

“We have to sweep that under the carpet straight away, we don’t want to bat like that again.

He added: “We have got the T20 now and then the next two one-dayers – we need to go out there and play with freedom and express ourselves.

“If we come out on the wrong end of it, it won’t be because we haven’t gone and given it 100%.”

The winner of Saturday’s showpiece will book their place at Edgbaston on August 29 and Northeast said: “We haven’t played a T20 game for a while but it’s all to play for. We need to pick ourselves up now."