Seamer Mitch Claydon says he feels hopeful he is on the verge of a big haul of wickets after changing his action in the off-season.

The 31-year-old Aussie-born Englishman has taken five wickets during Kent’s opening two Championship games, but has high hopes that tweaks to his action, and a shorter run-up will pay dividends in the wicket column before long.

Claydon said: “I am going off a shorter run this year – I’ve tried to make some changes to take the ball away a bit more and create some chances that way. It’s definitely working.

“It’s only 2.5m shorter, though it looks more as I walked into it before. There are also some things I worked on with a coach in Australia over the winter that mechanically helped a lot too.

“I find it a lot easier getting through 21 or 22 overs and having to come out the next morning to bowl is no problem.”

The former Durham paceman added: “I feel so much better bowling and creating chances. (We’ve seen) a couple of dropped catches here and a few decisions have not gone my way but I feel like I’m bowling well.

“Hopefully I feel as though I’m not far away from picking up a bag of wickets.”

Claydon – who signed on at the Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence after a successful loan spell last summer, backed the Kent attack to fire in LV= County Championship Division 2 before too long.

He said: “We’ll take a lot out of the last game. I think we’ve been unlucky so far.

“If you look at the little one-percenters – we lost the toss at Worcester, which was key, and in the first innings, if we could have batted and got a lead, I think it would have been a different result there, it suited their bowlers a little bit more.

“We won the toss against Leicestershire and chose to bowl under lights when it was overcast, then it rains and we don’t get on, and we find ourselves bowling when it’s 20 degrees and a lovely day. It’s just little things like that.

“There are positives to be taken. I think as a bowling unit we’re bowling pretty well, and we’re creating chances.

“Dropped catches are going to happen in a game, and maybe little things haven’t gone our way, but we’re not far away.”

Surrey visit Canterbury for a four-day game beginning on Sunday (11am) and Claydon added: “Coming down from Division 1, they will have a point to prove.

“They have got some pace, we have too – it should be a good game.”