Head coach Matt Walker regards Kent’s 2022 season as a success but knows they must start next summer better.

For the second successive year, Kent won a trophy, backing up their T20 Blast success in 2021 with the Royal London One-Day Cup.

They also finished fifth in County Championship Division 1 despite being dogged by the fear of relegation for much of the summer. They won their last two red-ball games to finish in a decent position.

But Walker was concerned the side have won just once in eight County Championship matches in April, dating back to 2019. In that same period, they have won eight out of 10 red-ball games in September.

“The April to September comparison is pretty frightening," he said. "Why is that? I’m not sure.

“I know that, sometimes, at the back-end of the season, that’s where it really counts. You know what you have to achieve whereas at the start you don’t. But it’s a statistic we need to balance out a bit more.

“We can’t keep fighting to the death each year and hoping to survive, it’ll catch us out in the end.

“But we played some really good cricket and won four Championship games. That was more than the teams below us so, in the end, the table doesn’t often lie.

“We are very happy with fifth. It gives us a platform to move into next season, knowing we are playing First Division cricket and knowing we can play like we did in the last few games.

“But, equally, we understand the areas we have to be better in. We have to be more consistent, we have to start better and we have got to put those performances on the page more often than not.

“If we do that, we know what we can do.

"But we want to do that earlier in the season rather than having to do it when it really counts.”

Kent ended their long wait for a List A final victory at Trent Bridge. They defeated Lancashire in the Royal London One-Day Cup final in September by 21 runs to put behind them a miserable T20 Blast title defence.

“With a trophy in the cabinet as well, it makes it a good season," Walker reflected.

"Whenever you win a trophy, I think you have to look at it as a good season.

“That’s one competition out of three but I think you have got to remember that winning trophies is hard work.

“Every county wants to do it, there’s only four trophies that can be won each year, and you have got 18 counties all trying to do the same thing.

"When you do win a trophy, it should be celebrated pretty strongly.

“We haven’t won that competition since 1978. I have been around for a few losses in the finals, I think there were nine leading up to this season, but we got to the final again and, this time, managed to get over the line.

“It should be celebrated and it makes it a very good season when you do win a trophy.”

While Kent had their struggles in the County Championship, a win against title-chasers Hampshire, backed up by a victory against Somerset at Canterbury in their last game in 2022, ensured they finished well.

Walker said: “Our performance against Hampshire was exceptional and as good a performance as I think I have been involved with over the years, bearing in mind Hampshire were on the charge looking to win the championship.

“We had seven players out. Only two players available didn’t play the game so we were down to the bare bones.

"We had a player not on the staff at the time playing in Harry Finch [although Finch has since signed professional terms with Kent]. The odds of winning that game were not in our favour one bit but it was an incredible performance.

“From where we were on the first day at 32-5 to turn that around and go and win the game, it was extraordinary.

"There were some incredible individual performances but, overall, it was an amazing team performance. I think that’s what stood out.

“Equally, it was a similar feeling against Somerset. The stand-out take away from those two games is what great team performances they were with both bat and ball.”

Walker and Kent's started pre-season training again in mid-November.