Kent batsman Brendan Nash felt that the side’s “positive brand of cricket” was behind their success on day two of their Championship game with Surrey.

Nash and his captain Rob Key both hit 126, and put on 197 together, as Kent closed the second day on 355-4, 70 runs ahead of the visitors with six first innings wickets still in hand.

And former West Indian international Nash, whose innings came from 157 balls and featured 20 boundaries, felt the way the team batted had a big part to play in their success.

“It kind of just flowed. It was obviously a very good wicket when I came in to bat, and the outfield was rolling quite nicely, so it was good batting time.

“We were all guilty of not playing positively enough and put some more intent back to the bowlers [in the first two games]”, he said.

“It was good that we took it on board – that’s a pretty good bowling attack, conditions were maybe a little bit more favourable to the batsmen, but all in all it was a pretty good cricket wicket.

“Since Keysy’s come back on board as captain, he’s talked about a “positive brand of cricket”. I think we saw that against Leicestershire in the last game – we tried to force the game really, with losing the first full day.

“We’re trying – we were almost 300 runs in deficit before we started, so we knew we wanted to try and knock them off, if we could, as quickly as possible. We’ve done that, so now it’s about building a lead to make a game of it still.”

“From yesterday to today, there’s still enough in it when you get the ball in the right areas.”

The 36-year-old also praised the effects of a 101-run opening partnership between Key and Northeast, which helped set the side up for the rest of their batting efforts.

“It’s not necessarily always [about] being positive”, he said, “but just blunting the initial attack from the opposition. It’s crucial.

“It goes without saying that a lot of teams feed off that opening stand. If you lose two or three quick wickets, it really puts a side on the back foot.”

Nash was now confident and hopeful that Kent could look to secure the victory in the remaining two days, although the weather looks like it could play more of a role in the time that remains.

“We’ve set the game up pretty nicely from our point of view”, Nash said.

“Obviously we would have liked one or two less wickets – ideally it would have been nice for Keysy and I to still be in there, but, saying that, we pretty much did our job as well as we could and Keysy was fantastic once again.”

 

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