A freak hand injury kept Kent’s 50 over skipper Jack Leaning sidelined for two months of 2024, and left him frustrated watching on from the pavilion and now he’s set to miss the start of the 2025 campaign.

Going into 2025, and now one of the dressing room’s more experienced players, Leaning has been reflecting on last summer’s events with one eye on the months ahead… 

“Loved captaining the fifty over side last year,” Leaning told us at the media day recently. “It’s something that I have always wanted to and something that I have always tried to challenge myself with if the opportunity arose.”

“And if I think that even if I am not captain, I still try to be a leader in the dressing room and be as much help to Deebs (Daniel Bell-Drummond) or Sam (Billings) as much as I can throughout the year!”

“I think that they both know that I am there to lean on and they need help with anything on or off the field, it’s a role that I enjoy doing, and if I’m ever asked to do it, I will always be happy to do it.”

“As a Vice-Captain I am there to try and alleviate some of the pressure I can off the boys!” 

Speaking ahead of sustaining a hamstring injury in training, Leaning said:

“I’ve been feeling good, refreshed after taking most the winter off, couple of weeks of training and now straight back into it – it tends to come around a bit quicker every year.”

“It wasn’t a fantastic summer last year for any of us, but I think as I have got older, I have refined more and more what I need throughout the winter and I think that actually having that time off and only starting doing Cricket stuff back end of January or early February, it keeps your mind fresher into the season.”

“I can actually be quite specific in what I need to do and hit the ground running coming into April as opposed to peaking end of February going into March.” 

“It’ll be a different year for us, and it will be an important year too!” Leaning admitted, “There have been a lot of changes, not so much from the personnel from the players side of things, but a couple of new coaches and obviously with the women’s team being around too this year, I think it is an exciting time for the Cricket Club and hopefully we can repay the fans with better cricket than we did last year.”

“I know that the boys are keen to put some of the wrongs from 2024 right and hopefully we’ll get off to a good start against Northants.” 

“I think everyone was frustrated at their individual performances last year – I don’t think that there is really any of us that could sit here talking to you saying we’d ticked all the boxes at our best last year.”

“These lads are a competitive group, so the results and relegation last summer hurt everybody, and I think everyone has been dying the whole winter to be ready for April the fourth against Northants to actually start with a point to prove and hit the ground running.” 

Leaning missed a big chunk of the last season after a freak injury to his hand and wrist. “No one likes being injured, especially something that is going to keep you out for two and a half months,” Leaning said with a grimace.

“Touch wood it will be better this year, and I’ll use my bat and not my hand to hit the ball! It was an innocuous injury too against Worcester at Canterbury – I actually didn’t think that I had done anything sinister at the time!”

“But when I woke up the following morning, I couldn’t do anything with my hand and realised something wasn’t right – I still tried to bat again that morning.”

“I had scans, it wasn’t broken and tried to get ready for the Somerset game and still couldn’t really do anything. I remember getting it re-scanned with a view to getting it injected, and that scan told us that I had a big crack in my hand that kept me out for eight weeks!” 

“We have a young squad so missing the more experienced players, then that puts an awful lot more pressure on them. Last year in Division One was an incredibly tough and competitive division – one of the toughest that I can remember.”

“In the long run, it will be good experience for the younger players that hopefully some of them can take some ownership and lead from the front.”

“Hopefully we will stay relatively injury free this year as that’s one thing that has hit us hard in the past couple of years, so touch wood it will be different this year!” 

“I have gone from being from being the younger player listening to the senior players to all of a sudden being one of the most experienced in the dressing room!”

“I am really fortunate to have grown up in the dressing room that I did at Yorkshire as I learned a lot from the senior players, and if I can pass on a word of wisdom or two to some of the younger lads as well as listening to my own advice, who knows it might be a decent season!”