KENT’S nerve, stamina, fitness and self-belief will be tested to the full over the next three weeks when they face critical limited overs and championship games in their run in to the end of the county season.

Injury, absenteeism of overseas internationals and burn out amongst such a small squad of players has hugely weakened Rob Key’s bowling options and led to successive NatWest Pro40 League defeats to Middlesex, Somerset and Surrey, that have all but put paid to their automatic promotion hopes.

Victories in Spitfires' final two league games against Glamorgan tomorrow (Friday) and at home to Yorkshire on Sunday (Canterbury from 12.45pm) may yet, however, re-kindle their chances of claiming the third-placed play-off spot to take on the seventh-placed finishers in Division 1 for the right to play in the top flight next year.

On the championship front, Key’s relegation-threatened side travel to the Rose Bowl from next Tuesday, September 11, to play Hampshire and a seemingly fit-again Shane Warne, needing at least a draw to maintain pressure on fellow strugglers Surrey and Warwickshire above them.

Kent conclude their four-day campaign by taking on Durham at St Lawrence from Wednesday, September 19. The one, slight bonus for Key is that Warwickshire will have completed their fixtures by then, meaning he and the team will know exactly what is required to save themselves from taking the drop for the first time.

Though he remains phlegmatic, Key says the last couple of weeks of leadership have been testing to say the least.

He said: “It’s not the most enjoyable of times to be captain when you only have three or four full-time bowlers in your attack and the rest of your bowling has to be ‘fiddled’ from part-timers, it’s not much fun to say the least.

“The three defeats have damaged our chances in the Pro40, but we haven’t prioritised one competition ahead of the other, I just feel the injuries and the results have more or less dictated what we do from here on in.

“I’m hopeful that personal pride will get us through now. We have a few players nearing 1,000 championship runs who will want to play well in the next two games to reach their individual milestones.

“As much as you want people to do it for Kent, it can only help our cause that players have their own targets too.”