Potentially 2023 could be a massive year for Kent opener Zak Crawley as Kent’s only current centrally contracted Test player goes into the opening of the domestic season next with one eye on the First Test of an Ashes summer in June – or does he?

Speaking to KSN at Kent’s Media Day last week, Crawley admitted, “Every game is important to me especially playing for Kent – there’s not a game in my life that’s not meant something to me and that’s exactly the same and in the first game of the season, it’ll mean an awful lot to me to score a lot of runs every time I go out to bat.”

“So I want to score runs for my sake and for Kent’s sake, but if I can score some runs and am in good nick when June gets here for England, then that’s nice as well, but the only thing I’m focused on at the moment is April 6th and scoring runs against Northants.”

Crawley then spoke of how things have changed being a Test player. “The funny thing is,” he said, “the playing group is similar, but the mentality and the way we go about it is completely different – the results show which is the right mentality, and it really just shows you that this game is a mental game at the end of the day, and if you’ve got the right mentality and attitude you do perform better.”

“The success we’ve had at Test level has surprised me a little bit if I’m truthful. I feel that it comes naturally to me to play that aggressive way. So I feel like I’ve made the mistake of perhaps taking it too far at times along with some of the other batsmen.”

“The thing that England are doing so well at the moment – the likes of Harry Brook and Joe Root – is that they are very smart with it. People talk about how aggressive they are, but they’re not seeing the work that they do away from the Test arena.”

“That’s where the balance is key and that’s why we’ve done so well.”

“Everyone concentrates on their own game, but I’m not going to score any runs playing like Harry Brook or score any runs trying to play like Joe Root. The only one I can score runs like is me and I’ve tried to do that throughout my career.”

“Obviously I’d love to play in the First Ashes Test in June but I’d like to score runs in my next game first and that’s all I’m focused on at the minute – scoring runs here at Canterbury against Northants!”