Kent’s Director of Cricket Paul Farbrace has told KSN of his desire to see opening batsman Joe Denly stay at the St Lawrence ground.

The 25 year old batsman is out of contract at the end of the summer and has been heavily linked with a move to Essex, but Farbrace is keen to see Denly sign a new contract at Canterbury.

Denly showed his class in Friday night’s five run loss to India by hitting a 68 ball century that included eight fours and two mammoth sixes.

It’s that form that has attracted interest from other counties, but speaking after the India game, Farbrace was full of praise about Denly:

“You can see from that knock why we are desperate to keep Joe Denly at Kent. That was probably one of the best innings you will see in Twenty 20 cricket.”

“It was a fantastic innings and one not to be underestimated as I thought it was superb from Joe and hopefully that will give him a big boost and he’ll go on and score some big runs before the season finishes.”

“It was clean striking from ball one and against an international bowling attack too.”

“We always talk about our young players, but we forget Joe is still quite a young bloke himself.”

“Joe is going to be linked with lots of places and it’s up to us to make sure we do everything we can to keep Joe at Kent. Joe is a Kent boy and he showed against India how much quality he has in his game and I really seriously hope he stays at Kent.”

“I hope we do everything we possibly can to keep him and come the end of the season it’s good news as far as Kent is concerned. If he were to leave I think it would be a great shame for Kent cricket

Friday night’s loss may not have been the result Kent fans would have wanted, but there is plenty of encouragement for the future and Farbrace was thrilled with how his side had performed against the World One Day champions:

“It was a brilliant effort. Everyone turned up expecting India to win comfortably and for me it was all about the experience for everybody, but mainly for the younger players in the side.”

“We had a big crowd and it was good to see the likes of Ball, Coles, Riley and Bell-Drummond get something out of it.”

“We got ourselves in a position to win the game, but to play against an international side and play as well as we did, I thought was full credit to them. It shows what the team are capable of.”

Kent are back in action again on Bank Holiday Monday when they play their last CB40 game against Derbyshire at Canterbury.

Azhar Mahmood and Alex Blake have been added to the eleven that played against India with Geraint Jones once again going to captain the side in Rob Key’s absence.

Kent’s 13 man squad to play Derbyshire: Denly, Bell-Drummond, van Jaarsveld, Stevens, Mahmood, Northeast, Jones, Ball, Tredwell, Coles, Balcombe, Riley, Blake.

To buy tickets for the game, visit www.kentcricket.co.uk Play gets underway at 1:45pm.