MORE THAN 400 Kent members will flock to the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury tonight for the county club’s 2001 awards dinner. The event, back on the club calendar for the first time in four years following Kent’s Norwich Union League championship win, the dinner has proved such a success that club officials have been forced to change the venue.

The dinner will now be held in a marquee annexed to the club’s Chiesman Pavilion so that all 400 guests can celebrate Kent’s first title in six years and witness the presentation of three new awards. Named after Kent legends of the 1970s, the Derek Underwood award will go to the player who topped the 2001 bowling averages, namely Martin Saggers, while David Fulton will collect the Mike Denness award as the county’s leading first-class batsman.

The third and final award, named in honour of the late Kent and England captain Lord Colin Cowdrey of Tonbridge, will be adjudicated by the Cowdrey family and awarded to the player who gave most to the club on and off the field.

The recipient will remain a mystery until this evening, though captain Matthew Fleming, wicketkeeper Paul Nixon and last season’s stand-in overseas player Andrew Symonds are thought to be in the running.