Kent captain James Tredwell has urged his side to bounce back from Friday night’s loss with a win against Surrey in the T20 on Sunday.

The Spitfires came out second best in the close encounter at the Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence with the Middlesex Panthers edging home by four wickets with two balls to spare in the rain affected game.

In what was Kent’s opening Twenty 20 fixture of the campaign, Tredwell and his side posted 129 for 5 in their 15 overs after a one hour rain delay with the Panthers meeting their target of 111 runs inside twelve overs.

With Duckworth Lewis having played its part, along with a fine innings of 41 not out from Middlesex batsman Adam Rossington, Kent skipper James Tredwell admitted his side were unlucky to have been beaten:

“We are utterly disappointed having done so well to get a decent score. It’s never easy when you’re setting a total and they had the advantage with Duckworth Lewis.”

“Vernon (Philander) bowled really well to give us a really good start, but we were massively disappointed with the last couple of overs.”

“We played pretty well to get to that total, but it was the bowlers that let us down.”

The big plus on the night was the debut of South African fast bowler Vernon Philander who finished the night with four wickets in his three overs, conceding just the eight runs in the process and Tredwell is hoping for more of the same in the upcoming games:

“He is a high class bowler and you know to a certain degree you are going to get something out of him. There’s no denying he had a bit of assistance as we found it tough in the opening overs when we batted.”

“We decided to bowl him through to get a bit of a heads up on the game and he certainly did that, but it was the end of the game that cost us.”

“I can’t say enough good things about Vernon, it’s just the rest of us that need to pick up our own games.”

With the last three overs going for 36 runs, Tredwell feels they need to improve at the end of an innings if they are to win games:

“You are going to go at some points of a game, but we need to better at the end of games. Maybe I got the overs wrong and bowled Stevo an extra over and could have given Mitchell Claydon an extra one, but that’s how it is sometimes.”

“You go with your hunch. It may have been the wrong one, but we were still in a good position with three overs to go.”

One of the talking points before the game was the selection of Sam Billings ahead of Geraint Jones, with Mark Davies left out of the side too, but for Tredwell it is about time that some of the club’s talented youngsters are given a go in the side after impressing in recent years:

“We reached the stage where Geraint is at the age where we’ve unfortunately been thinking about filling that spot for years to come. Sam Billings has shown his promise with the bat in One Day cricket and by him taking the gloves it enables us to keep progressing the other young players in the side.”

“It wasn’t an easy decision as he’s family and by no means was it taken lightly. He has been a high class performer for us over the years and by no means is he out of the reckoning in this competition, but we just felt this is a good time to hopefully progress some of these younger players.”

Billings had a mixed game for the side, scoring 26 off just 19 balls, but conceded 13 byes and Tredwell feels it will be an area to work on for the young keeper:

“It’s tough being his first competitive One Day game where he has kept and I guess this is why you do these things as you tend to find out about people.”

“Not to say that we found out any more, because it was a tough wicket to keep up on, as it was zipping through and nipping around a bit.”

“It was a tough baptism, but we will make a judgement over a longer period.”

In hindsight, there are arguments to suggest the experience of Davies may have been better for the side ahead of the youth of Coles who conceded 28 runs off 10 balls, with Tredwell admitting they will look at the make up of the side for future games:

“Adam Riley didn’t bowl and he has been bowling fantastically well for the last couple of weeks so arguably we could have got him a couple of overs, but that’s the decisions you make.”

“Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Davo hasn’t played a hell of a lot of cricket of late and that came into the equation.”

“We might have some decisions to make going into Sunday and going forward in this competition.”

With very little time to reflect on Friday night’s defeat, Tredwell and the Spitfires side will switch their attention to the visit of Surrey to Canterbury on Sunday and they will look forward to coming face to face with Azhar Mahmood who make the switch back to The Oval in the winter:

“It’s tough in Twenty 20 and we’re all smarting now, but we have got to dust ourselves off as Twenty 20 can be hard on you at times and if you let it affect you, then it will be even harder on Sunday.”

“We’ve got to come out smiling and have another crack at it.”

“It is a really challenging group and there are no easy games. It’s going to be tough, but we have shown enough to suggest we can go through in this competition.”

“You can easily go on a run of losing three or four on the bounce, but can easily with five or six in a row. There’s no reason why we can’t turn it around, just tinkering with a few areas and come out on top.”

Play starts at 3pm on Sunday afternoon at Canterbury and you can buy your tickets in advance from www.kentcricket.co.uk

Picture supplied by www.sarahansellphotography.com