MY FIRST thought after winning at Edgbaston was to get out of the dressing room, get down on the field and congratulate the boys, the next feeling was that of relief.

Relief that we'd got over the finish line, that the long wait and the hard journey down the road to victory was over, but even then I didn't realise that this was only Kent's third trophy success in 29 years.

Whe I turned down India, I truly believed Kent were heading in the right direction. It didn't work out for us in the Friends Provident Trophy, but we turned that into a positive by winning the Twenty20 Cup.

Not so long ago we were absolutely hopeless at this format of the game and at the start of the season nobody gave us a hope of winning it. It's right up there with my best days in cricket.

Our final four games in the competition showed the improvement the side have made this year, both in technique and in temperament.

In all four we were under the cosh up front and in previous years heads have dropped after starts like that, but this season the boys kept fighting and believing.

I'm tremendously proud of them, because ultimately a lot of this improvement has been achieved through the process of self-analysis.

The coaching team, have sat down with the players and spoken about areas they need to improve, but every step of the way the side has seen this as constructive and have gone out and done the work.

By the time we got to Edgbaston the boys had a lot of belief that their skills were good and that they could come out on top against almost any opposition.