THE cut, thrust and razzmatazz that is the Twenty20 Cup gets underway on Wednesday as Spitfires start their 2005 qualifiers with the first of eight frantic matches in a fortnight.

Kent bucked the national trend with reduced attendances at their 2004 games but this year’s format changes are likely to have the crowds flocking back to their four homes ties shared by Beckenham and Canterbury.

Spitfires face a tough start to their Southern Group games against Surrey at Beckenham on Wednesday.

The Lions won the inaugural competition and reached last year’s Twenty20 final only to be beaten by surprise packages, the sly Leicestershire Foxes, who included Kent’s close season signing Darren Stevens in their side.

Stevens hopes to pass on some of his Twenty20 expertise in a bid to take his new club through to finals day at The Oval on July 30.

He said: "The secret of Leicestershire’s success was that they had boys who could bat anywhere in the order and get their runs quickly.

"There was Jeremy Snape at six, Paul Nixon at seven, Ottis Gibson at eight and ‘Daffy’ DeFreitas at nine and Claude Henderson at 10, all people who can strike the ball well but were also doing a job on the field, bowling wise.

"There was a game plan and we generally stuck to it. We set out to lose no more than three wickets in the opening six overs and tried to make certain that one of our top-order players batted through the innings.

"If you look back at the record we achieved that in every game bar a qualifier against Durham, which we ended up losing."

As for the Foxes’ successful bowling strategy, Stevens added: "We switched and swapped the bowlers around and as soon as the six overs’ fielding limitations were up, we got our spinners on to take the pace off the ball.

"Snape did an awesome job for us in that regard, he varied his pace, mucked around at the crease by bowling some from wide out then he’d cut his run to a yard to just break up the batsman’s rhythm.

"We also put the boundary ropes right out at Grace Road to give our spinners more of a chance of a few catches in the deep, it all helped."

Stevens has already discussed Twenty20 tactics with Kent director of cricket Graham Ford and believes with the likes of Simon Cook, Martin van Jaarsveld, Justin Kemp and Andrew Hall in the side, Kent have a powerful unit.

"We have boys who can strike the ball up front and through the middle order and 'Cookie' coming in at nine who can hit it clean and straight.

"Bowling wise, we’ll have to try and keep to set plans without allowing the opposing batters to ever get comfortable against any one bowler.

"We will sit and chat about it this week but we can go into it feeling pretty confident after good performances at Bath and Cardiff."

And with £42,000 up for grabs to this year’s winners and £5,000 simply for qualifying from the group stages, the action is likely to be more furious than ever.

* Listen to Kent skipper David Fulton talking to kmfm sports editor Simon Watts ahead of the match...