Kent will go in search of their first County Championship win of the season as they take on Hampshire beginning on Wednesday.

With skipper James Tredwell away on England duty, it will be Geraint Jones that once again leads the side as Kent look to claim their first victory of this campaign after failing to do so in their opening six fixtures.

However, they will have to do it without the experience of seamer Mark Davies who misses the game through injury, but there was better news for the Kent squad this week with former captain Rob Key passed fit to travel to Southampton.

Key missed Sunday’s YB40 game against Northamptonshire at Tunbridge Wells with a quad injury, but will take his place at the top of the batting order alongside Sam Northeast.

Both Daniel Bell-Drummond and Ben Harmison are preferred ahead of the out of form Mike Powell in the side with Calum Haggett and Adam Riley drafted into the team because of Tredwell and Davies’ absences.

With only forty points under their belts for the season so far and trailing leaders Northamptonshire by 56 points, Kent are desperate for a win and stand in skipper Jones believes his side are more than capable of doing that this week:

“We generally play pretty well against Hampshire and matches tend to be quite tight. We had them nine wickets down last year (at Southampton) but they managed to hold out.”

“I guess we are two fairly evenly matched sides. They try to play youngsters and we’ve got some younger guys in our team too. Still, we can certainly take some confidence from our last couple of outings and hopefully push for our first win of the year in the LV= County Championship.”

“I guess it’s always good to go to the bigger grounds; the only shame is that county matches don’t really fill them up. I was watching highlights of the one-dayer between England and New Zealand on Sunday night and the ground looked a picture. It was a belting wicket and the outfield looked good so I hope it’s the same for us when play gets underway on Wednesday.”

“If we are going to push for promotion, which is what we all want, then we need to start winning. Many of the other teams have got off to flying starts and this is what we now need to produce. We need to start pushing for wins from every available situation.”

“Tredy and I keep in regular contact. My role is to support him, while he is away with England. All selection and team decisions are made by Tredy and Jimmy (Adams). Tredy is still very much the leader. I’m in charge of the team during matches but he is still making the decisions with Jimmy.”

Kent team for the match: Rob Key, Sam Northeast, Daniel Bell-Drummond, Brendon Nash, Ben Harmison, Darren Stevens, Geraint Jones (wk, cap), Matt Coles, Calum Haggett, Charlie Shreck, Adam Riley.

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