The future of Kent Cricket looks bright according to Mitchell Claydon after they got their first win of the season on Friday night.

Claydon was instrumantal in helping the Spitfires beat the Sussex Sharks by 7 runs in the thrilling Natwest T20 Blast match at the Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence in Canterbury.

He scored nine vital runs at the end of the Spitfires innings, including a four off the last ball of the innings as Kent posted 185/9 in their twenty overs.

However, it was with the ball in his hand that Claydon impressed the most, taking the man of the match honours after claiming figures of 2/29 in his four overs.

His two wickets accounted for Ben Brown and Will Beer in the penultimate over that swung the game the Spitfires way and Claydon told KSN after the match how that was the way Twenty 20 ebbed and flowed with both sides still in with a chance of winning going into the final few overs:

“That’s Twenty 20 for you. I said to the guys as we were coming off that this game is such an emotional rollercoaster. You think you have got them and they have one big over and they’re away, you pick up a wicket and you claw it back.”

It was great death bowling from Claydon and David Griffiths that saw the Spitfires secure their first win of the season and the former Durham seamer puts it down to a conversation held at the end of last season:

“Keysey and Jimmy set me, Griff and a few of the other bowlers a challenge in the winter and that was to go away and become the best death bowlers in the country as a group.”

“Keysey said that when we were successful in this competition before, we had bowlers that did that and he knew that getting it down to those final four overs and with good death bowlers, you could defend anything.”

“I think we had a lot of belief even with three overs to go and I knew if I could leave Griff with a good target, we could pull it off.”

It was a great team performance from Kent on Friday night with everyone contributing and Claydon believes the young side are starting to show some of the promise the fans are hoping to see:

“I was intent on bowling yorkers and if you can pick up wickets as well, a new batter has got to come in and try to get going and that’s tough no matter who you are.”

“I think our batters set up the game nicely, but if we are honest we were about fifteen runs light.”

“To get our first win of the season and out first win in Twenty 20 is a big thing. We’ve got a young squad, but a lot of really exciting players in our side.”

“Hopefully we can take this momentum on to Championship cricket and One Day cricket.”

It came as a surprise to many in the crowd that Darren Stevens was handed the new ball from the Nackington Road End, but one that paid off as he only went for five runs in the opening over and Claydon feels changing it up with one over spells was justified:

“Stevo has got a great Twenty 20 record and the batsmen are always looking for pace on the ball, but they have to make the pace with Stevo.”

“There’s no secret he is 39 and he puts it on a length. He’s a very skilful player and it was a late decision that worked.”

As the Spitfires took to the field on Friday night, they did it without club captain Rob Key who has taken a break from first team cricket with Sam Northeast leading the side in his absence.

For Claydon, it was a little odd that Key wasn’t out there with them, but is backing the skipper to bounce back and force his way back into the team:

“You do miss him in the field as he’s very entertaining and he’s experienced, but we’ve got a good young squad and Rob can still come back into this side and play a massive part.”

“He was our leading run scorer last year and always got us off to a flyer, but we have got guys that believe we can go on and win the Twenty 20.”

On Monday, Kent will switch their attention back to the County Championship and having failed to win their opening four games, go to Bristol to face an in form Gloucestershire side.

Captained by former Kent wicketkeeper Geraint Jones, the home side will know all about Kent, but Claydon isn’t concerned by that prospect:

“I think we have been close and the lads were very close the other day. I just think we have had bad sessions, or bad moments in games and we’re not far away.”

“Nowadays everyone knows about everyone else and you can have plans in place with lots of footage and statistics out there.”

“We’ll have the footage on them and they will have all the footage on us, but hopefully we play the better cricket.”

A lot of the talk this season has been Kent’s lack of overseas signing, but on Friday night they beat a Sussex Sharks side containing Sri Lankan Mahela Jayawardene and Claydon doesn’t think it is a major problem:

“We have got the belief in our dressing room that we can win with or without an overseas player.”

“I think we have got an exciting group of players. Obviously it would be handy to have an experienced overseas player, but we don’t and we will just crack on.”

“We won’t let it get to us, that’s the nature of the game, we didn’t have one, they (Sussex Sharks) did and we won.”