Zak Crawley admits playing top flight championship cricket will be a step up but he's confident his game is in a better place than it was a year ago.

The tall right-hander enjoyed a breakthrough season in 2018, playing all 14 County Championship games and hitting four fifties and a maiden century, 168 against Glamorgan at Canterbury in the final home match of the campaign.

Crawley's tally of 755 runs (average 31.46) was only bettered at Kent by experienced pair Joe Denly (828 at 34.50) and Heino Kuhn (780 at 33.91) and the 21-year-old is keen to push the boundaries even further this season.

He goes into the season on the back of a successful winter playing grade cricket for Sydney CC, where he averaged 65 and plundered a 42-ball T20 century – the fastest in NSW Premier Cricket history.

Crawley, who marked his First Class debut with a half-century against the West Indies in 2017, explained: "I had a great time out there, played a lot of cricket, and at a really good standard.

"There were good decks, you play against good players and really get a chance to develop your game.

"Obviously the standard is going to go up (in Division 1) but I think my standard's gone up. I feel like I've improved, particularly on the mental side over the winter, and over the back end of last season.

"I do a lot of work with (former Kent captain) Rob Key and he's very good mentally. He talks to me about what his thought processes were when he was playing.

"That's a big help but some things you just work out for yourself: Stop putting yourself under so much pressure, stop pre-meditating, stop getting ahead of yourself, all things that help you stay in the present and which helps you towards the end."

Crawley is expected to open the batting with Sean Dickson and the former Tonbridge School pupil is relishing the prospect.

He added: "It can be challenging but if you get in and score a few runs early then it's actually the best place to bat. It's where I want to bat in all formats."

Crawley recalled how 12 months ago optimism at the Spitfire Ground was muted but he feels the mood within the camp is different these days.

He added: "I remember at the start of last year we didn't feel that we necessarily had the depth or the strength to compete but how wrong we were.

"I might being doing us a disservice it was a year ago so my memory might be a bit hazy but I remember thinking it wasn't as positive as it ended up being.

"I think this year it's more positive, we've definitely got quality in the dressing room as we've seen over this winter with Sam (Billings) and Joe (Denly) scoring runs for England, Heino (Kuhn) and Daniel (Bell Drummond), we've got so many good players.

"We've added to the squad nicely and I can see us doing very well.

"Staying up would be nice but as a group I'd like to think we're aiming higher than that.

"We can compete with these sides, we compete with them in one-day cricket so there's no reason why we can't compete with them in four day cricket."

Kent started a three-day game against Loughborough MCCU at the Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence on Sunday. Play starts at 11am each day and admission is free.

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