And so it comes to this, well the next four days at the Spitfire Ground St. Lawrence anyway, as Kent fight for their Championship status in the final match of the season against Lancashire. 

Following their rain affected draw at Taunton last week, Kent go into the final four days a solitary point in front of Middlesex, an advantage that coach Matt Walker conceded could yet prove to be vital.

“It’s just one bonus point isn’t it? Every point this week is gold dust, that is for sure and if we can match Middlesex that should be enough, it’s about us setting our stool out; getting as many batting points as possible and then try to go on and win the game.”

“It makes the end of the season exciting the way relegation is, it always creates drama at the end of the summer. We managed to get out of it last year, this year it’s come down to the last game with everything on the line!” 

“It makes things very simple really, it’s a simple equation that we have to get more points than Middlesex get at Trent Bridge.”

“We’ve got to go out there and produce our best four days of the season then hopefully things will take care of themselves and we can’t focus on anything away from Canterbury this week and that’s the message to the group this week.”

“We are concerned with us and everything that we need to do to be as good as we can be over the next four days. We cannot get distracted with things that are going on, but we’ve got to focus on what we’re doing to hopefully win this game of cricket and if we do, that should be hopefully enough!” 

“I suppose that we always knew it was going to come down to the last game, it’s not the situation that we wanted to be in, but we are where we are and it comes down to the final four days of the season.” 

“The sums will come out as the week goes on, but come Tuesday morning, it’s all about Day One and then being as good as we can on Day One and then break it down hour by hour and into the sessions and the minute we look too far ahead, is the minute that we could stumble.”

“Let’s hope that we start well and get some control early on and hopefully that will give is a good chance to win the game.” 

Walker confirmed that Michael Hogan’s season is over as he misses out through injury but both Matt Quinn and Nathan Gilchrist are fit whilst both spinners, Yuzvendra Chahal and Aron Nijjar will both play.

Zak Crawley meanwhile is away on ODI duty in Bristol.