Spinner Hamid Qadri admits Kent have nothing to lose in their bid to reach the knock-out stages of the Royal London One-Day Cup.

The Spitfires beat Northamptonshire by four wickets on Sunday in Canterbury after three successive defeats.

They are due to visit Derbyshire today - with Tawanda Muyeye ruled out with toothache - before finishing with back-to-back home fixtures at The Spitfire Ground - against Yorkshire on Friday and Lancashire on Tuesday.

“Now there’s nothing to lose,” said the 21-year-old. “We are just playing ruthless cricket and enjoying it, just playing positive cricket.

“The boys are just happy to play and play positively - that’s the way forward.

“If we do get a win playing positively, so be it. If not, obviously, we learn from the loss.”

But as Kent aim to make their way into the semi-final stages, Qadri thinks it’s vital the Spitfires stick to the right processes during their remaining matches.

• Opener Compton leads Spitfires to overdue win

• All-rounder Stevens to leave Kent at the end of the season

He said: “You can’t really focus on the end result too much, just focus on the process of playing good cricket for long periods of time. Then you get your rewards.”

Qadri joined Kent on a three-year deal ahead of the 2020 season having made his first-class debut for Derbyshire against Glamorgan in 2017, aged 16. When doing so, he produced figures of 5-60 in his second innings.

But this year, he seems to be finding slightly more consistency to his game.

He took a career-best in the Royal London One-Day Cup of 4-36 against Northants and also claimed 6-129 in County Championship Division 1 against Lancashire earlier this season.

Qadri thinks the wickets he has played on in 2022 have helped to get the best out of him.

“We have had wickets [where] I’m required to bowl for long periods of time,” he explained.

“I’m quite young but the wickets have allowed me to bowl for long periods of time and longer spells will get the best out of me. It’s good to have good wickets.

“Obviously the more I bowl, hopefully, the better I’ll get.”

The previous weekend, Kent lost heavily to group leaders Hampshire at Beckenham, with Alex Blake admitting the side needed to improve in the field.

They were certainly in far better shape in that respect against Northants as Qadri ran-out Rob Keogh for 11.

He said: “I’ve played against Keogh quite a lot of times. He can be destructive and he can take the game away from you so it was nice to get a run-out.

“I think it was our first in the competition so far! So it was nice to have a bit of buzz, create that energy in the field and we got the rewards at the end.

“It’s just an attitude thing - it’s about doing it for your mates and putting your body on the line more importantly.”

Chasing 211, opener Ben Compton struck what proved to be a match-winning 87 before Qadri nicked the winning runs through the slips.

“Ben has been outstanding, 1,000 runs in the County Championship. He knows his game inside out,” Qadri enthused.

“For him to play his game the way he did - it was spinning sideways - so I thought the way he played was outstanding. It’s a shame that he didn’t finish the game off.

“He works tremendously hard on his game and gets the runs.”

Qadri also spoke highly of his relationship with legendary Kent all-rounder Darren Stevens who is set to leave at the end of the season.

“Me and Daz have, obviously, played for a couple of years together. He is my go-to man in the field,” he said.

“It’s going to be emotional seeing Daz go. We have a lot of banter on and off the pitch.

“He has looked after everyone, it’s going to be emotional and hopefully we can give him a good finish.”