Chief Executive Jamie Clifford has told KSN how Kent are close to agreeing deals with some of their soon to be out of contract players.

As many as a dozen players will be out of contract at the end of the summer with experienced trio Geraint Jones, Darren Stevens and James Tredwell three of those that are currently in talks about a new deal at Canterbury.

Sam Northeast, Simon Cook, Chris Piesley, Fabian Cowdrey, Ben Kemp and Ashley Shaw will also be out of contract at the St Lawrence Ground with both Mark Davies and Ben Harmison under consideration for extensions to their initial one year deals.

Meanwhile, Azhar Mahmood has had his contract for next year cancelled by mutual consent with the all-rounder still in with a shout of playing T20 for Kent next season.

Lastly, Brendan Nash told KSN last week how he was hopeful of agreeing a new deal that will see him stay at Canterbury in some capacity.

Speaking exclusively to Kent Sports News, Clifford revealed the club are close to making some announcements:

“I guess we are nearing the end of the process. It’s been a bit drawn out, possibly because we’ve going well in all competitions.”

“Picking the moment to sit down with players and take things forward is quite difficult, but we’re getting near to the end of the process and I expect to be able to announce some news before the end of the season.”

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive went on to explain how it will be another busy winter off the field for Kent with more work planned for around the ground at Canterbury:

“We have got our office move to come quite soon after the season has ended. We have just got to get IT and phones sorted with the furniture due to arrive quite soon.”

“There are a few other bits to be done with the redevelopment with the current club offices to be demolished, probably at some point over the winter and some flats hopefully going in their place.”

“We’ll also keep working on the hotel plans, so it won’t be a quiet off-season.”

“We also want to bed in some of our other things we are undertaking including a consumer engagement project which is about making sure the customer’s journey from the time that they think about coming to the cricket, to the time that they get home after is catered for.”

“We’ll also be doing quite a big thing on staff training with trying to improve the customer experience in the ground along with trying to build our commercial base.”

“People will see that we are doing things quite positively, so that should give us plenty to work with.”