Kent batsman Rob Key is looking forward to a season without the pressures of the captaincy after stepping down after seven years in charge.

The 33 year old stepped aside towards the end of last year after taking the side as far as he felt he could, handing over the baton to James Tredwell who will lead the team from this season onwards.

Key will remain at the club as a batsman and has told KSN how he is looking forward to just concentrating on his own game this summer and not having to deal with the stress that the captaincy brings:

“At the end of last year I’d had enough of being captain and I was given a couple of months to decide whether I wanted to give up and after seeing if I wanted to change my mind, I knew I didn’t, so it’s nice to come back and start thinking about this passage of my career.”

“It’s been really nice to think about nothing else other than how I’m playing and how I’m going to go out there and score runs. All the other stuff doesn’t really bother me. Captaincy was a privilege, it was a job I wanted to do and a job I wanted to do as well as I could, but now I don’t think about it at all.”

Key went on to explain how his family will benefit from seeing more of him, whilst he should be a lot less stressed as a result of having stepped down:

“As cricketers we are lucky with the amount of time you can spend with your kids. You get a fair amount of time off in the winter. Yes you are away for a week here and there in the summer, but you do get to see a lot more of the kids than most people.”

“The good thing is now is that they’re not affected by my mood swings, although I’d like to think at times I was good at hiding the stress you could be under being a captain, but I am sure my wife and kids would say differently.”

“Now they get less of the mood swings, so I can imagine they are a lot happier.”

With Key having stepped down from being captain, a lot of talk has centred around what role he will now have in the side and as a senior player, he is hoping he retains his slot at the top of the order:

“I am quite happy to open and to be honest I haven’t really thought about it as I don’t see myself batting anywhere else at the moment.”

“I’m at that point where it’s whatever Treddy and Jimmy want from me, but there’s no difference between opening and coming in at number three anyway.”

“At the end of the day, I just hope to play as well as I can.”

At the club’s press day this week, it was clear that Key has spent the winter working hard on his fitness and he explained how he was still being questioned as if he was still the skipper:

“With the amount of questions I’ve been asked, it doesn’t seem any different whatsoever. All I’m generally asked now is how I feel and I feel pretty good!”

“I look like Michael Buble now I think. It’s been a good winter for me and I’ve been able to do what I want to do and getting myself fit which has helped a lot.”

“I’ve got a dog which is probably the main reason. Having to walk a dog becomes a real chore, so I have been out running with the dog, so the dog deserves more credit than me.”

When asked if he had set himself any targets this season, Key added:

“Not really because you are almost trying to predict it. At this stage of your career, you know what a good year is, you know what a bad year is and what a mediocre year is.”

“If you get between 1500 and 1600 hundred runs, you’ve had a good year, if you get a thousand runs, you’ve done alright and anything less than that and you’ve had a year that you know you could have done better.”

“At the end of this summer, I’ll know whether I’ve had a good year. I don’t think about it now and will try and bat the way I want to play.”

Looking from the outside in, it seems that Kent will benefit from a refreshed Key who wants to do one thing only this year and that’s to score as many runs as possible.

When we all look back at the end of the year, it’ll come as no real surprise if Key’s name isn’t right up there for runs scored.

Main picture supplied by www.sarahansellphotography.com