Kent Spitfires begin their defence of the One Day Cup today with a trip to the seaside to face Yorkshire at Scarborough, and ahead of the start of the competition, KSN has been talking to coach Simon Cook.
Just as in 2023 with head coach Matt Walker involved in The Hundred with the Oval Invincibles, Cook once again takes the helm and as he told us, he is looking forward to the defence.
“We know that by going into the competition as reigning Champions there’s extra pressure on every single game, and we know that we’ll have to work harder and harder to meet that added pressure. We can’t dwell on the fact that we won the Cup last year, we don’t have the right to think that we’ll get to the Final again as we know that to win a Final isn’t as difficult as actually getting there first.
“We have to make sure that we’re focused on what we do really well within each game within each of our roles, and if we can do that we could well be there or there about again and maybe make the Final again!”
“We’re playing a few of the sides that we played past year in Yorkshire and Lancashire but miss out on Worcester and Glamorgan which is quite nice and keeps the competition fresh for us and everyone else.”
Given how stretched the Counties squad has been recently, the burning question for Coach Cook had to be about the playing squad and whats it looking like?
He replied, “It’s been quite a challenge actually for putting a four-day team together as it showed last week! But whilst all that was going on we’ve been working hard in the background putting together a squad that can play for the whole competition. And the short answer, is that we’ve got a very competitive squad and perhaps even slightly better than we had last year, certainly a bit more mobile although possibly slightly less experienced having no Darren Stevens and no George Linde or Ollie Robinson which are probably the three main differences to last year.”
“But we’ve brought in James Blazeley from Queensland who comes into the side as a seam bowling allrounder who will add strength to us; we’ve got Marcus O’Riordan who didn’t play last year because of his shoulder and has scored a lot of runs for the second team last few weeks including a hundred against Essex last week; similarly we’ll have the services of Jack Leaning this year as he’s not involved in The Hundred and Grant Stewart is available after his international duty with the Italians.
“Joe Denly will hopefully be fit for the first few games because of his side strain so I do think that we’ve got most bases covered. The biggest addition of course has to be Matt Parkinson who’s playing ahead of his permanent move in the winter. We’ve got some real cutting edge throughout the side, some real cutting edge at the top of the order and a level of experience throughout!”
“We’re doing a lot of travelling, Scarborough, Blackpool, the Isle of Wight, so with the two games at Beckenham and then the two at Canterbury we’ll try to do again this year and that’s making Canterbury our fortress after we put in some really good performances that won close games.”
Weather permitting the Spitfires begin their defence at Scarborough today before returning home to face Leicestershire at Beckenham on Sunday from 11.00