Kent spinner Adam Riley says that competition has been fierce in pre-season, with places in the side’s starting XI still up for grabs.

Riley enjoyed a positive season for Kent in 2013, featuring regularly in the 40-over and T20 competitions, and averaging a more than respectable 26 with the ball from his five Championship appearances.

With some new faces having joined the squad prior to the 2014 season, Riley has told KSN that everyone is working hard to secure their spot.

“There are definitely places up for grabs this year”, the Sidcup-born off-spinner said.

“Colesy [Matt Coles] has gone [to Hampshire], so there’s a seamer or all-rounder spot up for grabs. It’s good competition during pre-season because no guys are certain of their place or where they’re going to bat in the team.

“Whilst everyone is trying to prepare themselves for the season, there is also a bit of competition within the team and that will probably show in the pre-season fixtures that are coming up in the next couple of weeks.

“Guys are going to have to put their hand up and really grab hold of the place that they want to be in.”

Riley has been balancing his cricket with his studies over the last few years, but is now close to completing his degree, something he has been working hard on during the off-season, alongside cricket.

“I’ve been at Loughborough University finishing my degree – it’s my final year now so I’ll be done at the end of May”, he explained.

“I’ve been in the Performance Centre up there training with Loughborough, and I bowled a bit at the [England] Lions when I was up there, which was good preparation.”

He also found the time to get away for a few days, as he told KSN when we caught up with him at Chaucer Direct on Friday evening. Riley was one of a number of Kent sporting stars manning the phones to accept donations for Sport Relief at the Whitstable-based call centre.

“I had 10 days in South Africa, where it unfortunately rained at some point every day,” he said, “but we got some practice done out there. I came back about three or four days before pre-season started.”

The pre-season has seen a number of changes to the backroom staff and management at Kent, with two of the main changes being former batsman Matt Walker returning to the club from Essex as assistant coach, and Rob Key taking back over the captaincy reins from James Tredwell.

“There are a few fresh faces around”, said Riley.

“Walks [Matt Walker] brings a lot of energy to the team. He’s got fantastic views on fielding and stuff – just this week, we’ve had hundreds of new fielding drills that he’s introduced to us, and it’s great that we’ve got someone who we can learn off as he’s only given up the game a few years ago.”

“Obviously with Keysy back [as captain] it’s good. Treddy was away for a lot of pre-season last year and he was disappointed with that – that he couldn’t be around to affect the pre-season as he wanted to.

“With Keysy around, he gets his stamp on what he wants to get out of pre-season with the lads and with Jimmy [Adams, Head Coach], he’ll just continue to drive the machine that hopefully pushes us towards some success this season.”

 

Top picture supplied by www.sarahansellphotography.com