Daniel Bell-Drummond has welcomed the return of the T20 Vitality Blast as Kent look to build on their performance in last season's competition.

The Spitfires reached the quarter-finals stage where they were eventually beaten by Lancashire Lightning.

Bell-Drummond finished as his side's joint-second top scorer in the format with 372 runs alongside Sam Billings, bettered only by Joe Denly's 409.

He said: "I'm looking forward to it quite a bit, it's always a fun format to play and we've got a very strong team so I've got high hopes for us heading into this competition and I'm sure we'll be doing very well as a team however far we get.

"We're very confident and I know the guys are looking forward to it.

"The crowds are always brilliant in the T20 Blast so I'm very much looking forward to it.

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"The overseas we've got are brilliant. Obviously we've had Adam Milne for a while now so he'll bring that extra pace, I'm very much looking forward to having Mohammad Nabi.

"He's a world class cricketer and I'm looking forward to playing with him. I know the team feel the same as well."

Bell-Drummond enters the competition having been in decent form in the Specsavers County Championship.

The 25-year-old hit his first championship hundred since April 2016 against Leicestershire earlier this month when he scored 166 in Kent's draw with Warwickshire.

This was followed up by 64 in the win against Surrey as well as 94 in Kent's draw against Hampshire at The Ageas Bowl.

"Yeah it was a brilliant feeling (his ton versus Warwickshire)," said Bell-Drummond.

"I've been waiting a while for it so it was great to get that in the bag and hopefully move on now and go on to bigger and better things.

"I just took every ball as it came down to be honest, but I did feel good. It was quite a flat wicket and once I got into my work I felt quite confident. I was never thinking too far ahead.

"It was very important for me especially. I do love the red-ball format and it gives me great satisfaction scoring runs in it so I definitely want to improve my red-ball game and reach as high as I can with it.

"It's given me great confidence over the last few weeks to be in the runs again.

"It's been good to get a run of games and contribute to the team, I'm feeling good and hopefully I can keep pushing on from here.

"Playing in Division 1 is definitely a step-up but we're proving we are more than capable of matching other teams if not doing better than them so I can't complain to be honest."

Kent begin their T20 campaign against Somerset at The Spitfire Ground on Saturday, before visiting Hampshire the next day.

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