Kent captain Sam Northeast is enthusiastic for his first full season in charge, with the start of Kent’s County Championship campaign only 24 hours away.

Northeast, 26, was appointed club captain in September of last year, taking over from Rob Key, to whom he had been acting as vice-captain since 2013. With Key out of the side for large portions of the season, Northeast led Kent for much of the 2015 campaign. He took a young side to the quarter-finals of both the NatWest T20 Blast and the Royal London One Day Cup, and scored more than 2,000 runs in all competitions.

With his first full season at the helm beginning with the County Championship game away at Worcestershire, starting tomorrow, Northeast is excited for what lies ahead.

“I’m looking forward to it hugely”, he said at the club’s annual press day earlier this week.

“I don’t think much has changed from last year. It hasn’t really felt different this year, but it’s nice to have had a winter of really trying to get the players in a good place. In terms of that, it’s been quite an easy changeover, and hopefully this year we can go one better.”

Northeast was somewhat critical of the state of some of the Division Two pitches last year, with what he felt were too many “results wickets” to be found around the circuit, giving little chance to spin bowlers and making life tough for batsmen.

A new rule change, introduced for this season, will see visiting captains given the opportunity to decide to bowl first without having the coin toss, and the Kent skipper feels that this is a positive step forward.

“When I heard about it, I thought it was a brilliant thing”, he said.

“The pitches weren’t acceptable for Division Two last year, especially for the spinners we have in our rank. We hardly bowled a spinner at times, and going away to certain counties, it wasn’t acceptable.

The Ashford-born batsman understands, however, that given just one side will be promoted from Division Two this year, that some “results wickets” are still to be expected.

“With the one-up this year, I still think that counties will produce wickets in order to get a result so that they do go up”, he said.

“I don’t think it’s the ideal. I still think that we’re going to have to be a bit stricter on pitches going forward but at the moment, I think we’re going to have to make do with what we’ve got.”

Photograph courtesy of Sarah Ansell Photography