Imran Qayyum insists Kent are refusing to let their mood be dampened by the team’s struggles in the 50-over format.

High-profile injuries have proven a salient thorn for the team in the Royal London One-Day Cup competition, in which Matt Walker’s men are still without a win.

Rather than allowing disappointment to leak into the dressing room, the Spitfires have instead absorbed the situation as a valuable experience.

Qayyum said: “The overall season throws a lot at you. Because it’s a long season you’re going to have injuries.

“We’ve just been very unlucky that it’s all happened at once but we don’t get disheartened, we keep moving forward.

“Complaining about the situation is not going to help, we’re a close-knit group so we do help each other a lot and I think it only makes us stronger as a group. It toughens us up.

“The way we feel is that we’ve had a lot of injuries now but later in the season we’ll have everybody available at the same time, that’s the positive side of things.

“The thing is it’s just one of those things that can just happen.

“That’s just life, they’re things you can’t predict or stop, it just happens by chance, really.

“It is a young squad so there are opportunities for young players, as there is for myself. If there are injuries, those that aren’t injured get opportunities which is the positive.

“People that wouldn’t have played the one-dayers in previous years are getting game time, so they’re the positives we can take from this.”

Qayyum registered impressive figures of 4-45 and 26 not out with the bat as Kent lost by 100 runs in Saturday’s tour match against Pakistan.

Qayyum added: “It was pleasing, it always is I guess.

“It was against my family’s country of origin so that was a good feeling as well.

“Overall it was an enjoyable day even just playing against them.

“I think my family were supporting me, if I wasn’t playing they probably would have been supporting Pakistan though.

“I think it’s pretty obvious we haven’t had the best of starts to our Royal London One-Day Cup this year in comparison to last year and there was a massive expectation coming into this season.

“It happens, you can get into a bad run. After the game against Pakistan, myself personally, I feel like I’m going into the last three games pretty confident.

“It was good to get that kind of performance as a confidence booster.

“Obviously they (Pakistan) are an international team so they always had the upper hand but I think we competed really well.

“There were moments in the game where we did pull it back, I think we had them at 150-4 at one point, then we sort of gave it away a bit in the death.

“Even chasing 350, when Blakey (Alex Blake) was going and 80 not out we were in a great position, then obviously there was that controversial dropped catch by Hasan Ali.

“We definitely feel that it was a drop. He may say different but from our view and from the stuff on social media, it was a drop wasn’t it?

“There was definitely something fishy about it.”

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