THE Championship match against Warne’s Hampshire lads turned out to be an absolute cracker of a game.

The fans certainly enjoyed four days full of high-quality action; drama and a nail-biting finish to boot.

I was very proud of the fighting spirit shown by our chaps in holding out for the draw after the game hadn’t quite gone to plan.

Katich scored a stylish century and Warne showed good form with ball and bat, even scoring his maiden hundred, and I’m sure both will play significant roles in this summer’s Ashes series.

Although our battling draw and the fight we showed was pleasing, I was disappointed that none of our top order batsmen managed to score centuries.

Quite a few of them made good starts, indeed we went to six half-centuries, but no one managed to convert a good start into a significant hundred.

It was the sort of game where a first innings century would have given us a lead and a chance of controlling the game thereafter, but that’s just one of the lessons we can take out of the game.

With the first Test series of the summer almost upon us the Kent lads are all very disappointed that Rob Key didn’t win selection.

Personally, I think he deserved a decent run in the England side but now those selected will be hoping to inflate their Test averages and cement their places against Bangladesh.

Maybe Keysy is better off preparing for the Ashes by scoring maybe tougher runs for Kent in the championship.

With luck, Andrew Hall will make his debut in our championship match with Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge.

He didn’t get many playing opportunities with South Africa on their tour of the West Indies, so I’m sure he will be itching to make a start for us.

Andrew is an energetic cricketer and will strengthen our squad considerably whilst bringing competition for places.

From here on there will be some tough selection calls for us to make and certain players will be disappointed to miss out, but competition is a healthy and will keep everyone working hard, on their toes and striving hard for high standards of performance. Excellence of performance is what we are aiming for at Kent.