Kent’s Zak Crawley has suggested his latest England Test call-up may have helped fuel his return to form.

Crawley scored two half-centuries in their drawn County Championship Division 1 match against Northamptonshire.

He backed up a first-innings 62 with 84 in the second innings having previously only had one half-century to his name this summer for Kent.

When Crawley does link-up with England, the 24-year-old will work alongside their new-look management team for the first time, which has Brendon McCullum as England’s new Test head coach, former Kent skipper Rob Key as managing director and all-rounder Ben Stokes as Test captain.

Crawley said: “It's always nice being picked for England and I can't wait to get going with them. So, it fills me with a lot of energy, and maybe that’s why I got a couple of runs this week.

“I’m excited about Brendon McCullum coming in. I love watching him play and I'm sure I'm going to love working with him as a coach.

“So, I think he might suit me actually - quite a positive coach - so I look forward to seeing if that's the case. But he's, obviously, a great character in the sport and I’m looking forward to it.

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“If I time my form well and I score runs in Test cricket, that will mean an awful lot to me. That's not to say I don’t want to score runs every time I go out to bat, and I've been disappointed that I haven’t been able to help Kent as much as I’d have wanted to this year.

“But everyone knows Test cricket is the pinnacle and, if I can get a hundred in the next couple of weeks, that might put the last few weeks right.”

At Northamptonshire, the sides shook hands on the draw with Kent 170-1 in their second innings on Sunday.

“I thought we played pretty well,” reflected Crawley, speaking on Sunday. “The rain on the morning of day two kind of killed our chances of winning on a flat deck.

“But I thought we controlled the game and, if we hadn't lost half a day, maybe we could have had a crack at them today. But we didn't have enough time.

“I’ve started to find a bit of rhythm, which is nice. I obviously haven't scored the runs I wanted to, but I feel in good rhythm now.

"Obviously today, it was a bit easier than the first innings, but I still struck the ball nicely, so I feel good about my game.”