Matt Walker concedes Kent may need to look at how they manage their bowlers ahead of the 2023 season.

Harry Podmore, Nathan Gilchrist and Darren Stevens had their injury problems last summer while seam bowler Matt Milnes, now at Yorkshire, missed Kent’s final two County Championship games of the 2022 season with a back injury.

Kent also struggled to find an overseas pace bowler who was consistently available. Australian Jackson Bird’s Kent stay was curtailed by injury, before New Zealand’s Matt Henry and India paceman Navdeep Saini came, but they both made just two County Championship Division 1 appearances.

Largely as a result of their struggles with the ball, Kent were dogged by the fear of relegation before back-to-back wins in their last two four-day encounters saw them finish fifth.

“Bowlers are incredibly important. They win you championships,” said head coach Walker, who has already brought in veteran seamer Michael Hogan in the close season.

“You need a good number of bodies in the camp to deal with injury and other issues.

“Jackson, obviously, got injured very early on in the season. We had a little bit of Matt Henry and Saini but we weren’t lucky enough to have a constant overseas player.

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“It’s not the be-all-and-end-all but, certainly, you saw the difference having Matt Henry in the group made, not only with his skill levels, but it brings the best out of everybody else.

“If we can get that right, and identify an overseas that’ll be available at the right price for a good chunk of the season, that can definitely give us a real boost.

“If we can recruit a couple of domestic seamers as well, it’ll give us a bit of depth in that bowling unit.

“I think we realised this year that we are going to have to rotate more. We may need to look at a slightly different strategy around resting bowlers a bit more. It’s always difficult when you have a smaller squad but I think we learnt some harsh lessons this year around bowling our bowlers one too many games in a row.

“Those games, in some cases, were quite long and we were asking a bit too much, really.

“We have to look at that and come up with a plan around rotating our bowlers a bit more. We’ll need a few more in the building.”

Walker felt the strength of the top teams’ bowling attacks helped them force results.

“If you look at the strong sides, they have good bowling attacks. They have quality,” he said.

“Hampshire have a world-class attack in Mohammed Abbas and Keith Barker, and, along with Surrey’s attack and Essex’s quality, they’re teams that are always going to push hard and create results.

“The batsmen still have to score runs. But if you have a bowling attack that’s as fresh as they can be throughout the season, then that definitely gives you an advantage.

“So we will be working hard to have the right people in the dressing room. It’s not always easy, the overseas is always a very difficult project to find the right ones, [with] those that are available and they tend to come with a high price tag.

“Usually, the better they are, the less available they are, too. But we’ll see what we can do.”

When Kent’s bowlers are fit and available, though, Walker knows they have real quality.

Fast bowler Gilchrist was named bowler-of-the-year and young player-of-the-year at their end-of-season awards night, with Walker saying: “He has really grown and what a fantastic season he had.”

Off-spinner Hamid Qadri, meanwhile, was chosen as Kent’s emerging player-of-the-year.

“What a fantastic year he had,” the coach said of 22-year-old Qadri.

“He had a great Royal London One-Day Cup campaign and played in three Championship games, doing pretty nicely in each game he played - both with bat and ball.”

The Kent head coach also praised charismatic bowler Matt Quinn.

He said: “I thought Matt Quinn was very good all year. He didn’t necessarily get the wickets he would have liked, or deserved, in some cases.

“But in the end, those last 14 wickets in the last couple of games were really crucial.”

And while opener Ben Compton won three awards, being crowned player-of-the-year, players’ player-of-the-year and batsman-of-the-year, Daniel Bell-Drummond’s contributions didn’t go unnoticed by Walker.

“He got more than 900 runs in Championship cricket so it was a really positive turnaround for him in red-ball cricket.” Walker said.

“Individually, we know we have got the players but can we put it together?

“If we can, we can be a real force to be reckoned with.”