Kent’s hopes of keeping seamer David Balcombe for next season have been dealt a blow.

The 26 year old bowler joined Kent on loan in July to ease their injury crisis and has proved to be a massive hit at Canterbury taking 33 Championship wickets in just five matches.

However, despite Kent’s best attempts to keep the Hampshire bowler, Balcombe will return to the Rose Bowl for next season having taken four five-wicket hauls.

Speaking to Kent Sports News about the news, Kent’s Director of Cricket Paul Farbrace was sad to see the wicket taker leave:

“We have done everything possible to keep him, but Hampshire have said they want him back next year. It’s disappointing as he has shown what a quality player he is and on his day he has proven to be the difference we have needed.”

“We’ll have to look at other options now to bolster our bowling attack and with Charlie Shreck coming in next season we hope to have an attack that will make us competitive.”

“We’ve seen this year that we haven’t been able to take the wickets to give our batters something to play with and hopefully through the winter we’ll be able to change that.”

Despite the loss of Balcombe, Farbrace still believes the future is bright for Kent Cricket with a whole host of youngsters starting to show their potential for years to come:

“We have seen in the past couple of games that some of the younger guys have what it takes to be professional cricketers with the likes of Adam Ball, Adam Riley and Matt Coles getting some valuable experience with some of the senior guys out of the side.”

“A lot of credit also has to go to Azhar Mahmood too who has put his hand up and said he wants to play in these last few games as he cares about the club.”

The season may well be over and it might not be the year Kent fans would have been hoping for, but Farbrace believes the hard work starts now and it will be a busy six months before the season starts once again:

“We will all be apprasing our performances, myself included and we will learn from our mistakes and make sure we are ready to hit the ground running come the start of next season.”

Picture supplied by Sarah Ansell & KCCC. To see more of Sarah’s pictures, please visit www.sarahcanterbury.com