THE county recently hosted Bangladesh A which gave us an opportunity to rest up some of the battle-weary senior players and give some of our young players chance to shine.

Unfortunately conditions were rather bowler-friendly and the match finished inside two days, albeit that they were two interesting and entertaining days.

Our young side, ably led by Martin Saggers, showed an impressive fighting spirit and eventually won by three wickets.

It's always nice to win and it was a very happy Kent dressing room last Wednesday evening.

Some of the youngsters were very upbeat with their contributions to the victory, and so they should have been because some played with real composure considering this was their first time out on the big stage.

Our Kent Academy, headed up by Paul Farbrace, is producing some fine young players.

Paul is doing some brilliant work mentoring these young lads and they are paying him back with tremendous performances at various levels.

Two of the academy lads - Paul Dixey and Kevin Jones - were given opportunities against Bangladesh and both showed real potential.

They are good adverts for the excellent work being done with the academy side.

Neil Dexter also showed us what a well organised player he and is another to be discovered by 'Farby'.

Neil is a friend of Matt Dennington’s and was invited to join our 2nd team practice sessions after Paul spotted him having a net with Matt.

He’s performed well in the league and has looked a little gem in the 2nd team games.

He looks capable and has made the right impression in all the right places, so we’re hoping to invite him back for next year.

Competition is extremely tight at the top of the table so we need to be totally focussed on our game at this stage of the season.

There's a real danger on focussing on the league table and not on the ball, so there's no point worrying about the other matches, what we need to do is what we have done well all season - work hard at our many objectives which will hopefully help us achieve our big goal.

While Kent do battle in the championship, I know our fans will struggle to divert their attention away from the action at Trent Bridge.

I do think the Aussies have missed a trick or two by not picking Andrew Symonds in their Test squad.

He seems in the form of his life with the bat and contributes well with the ball, but he also knows the English conditions so well. What sort of impact he would have made we will never know.