Kent Spitfires begin their Vitality Blast campaign this afternoon with a game against Hampshire at the Spitfire St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury and we’ve been talking to coach Matt Walker about the upcoming competition.

“I’ve got to keep reminding myself that we are a young side and will make mistakes over a period of time,” Walker told us.

“We haven’t got overseas players; we’re missing two England players – and I know other sides are in the same boat -but I can only worry about my group.

“Looking at last week and that young batting line-up with Cox and O’Riordan, Stewart and Robinson who’s only in the start of his second year; that’s a pretty inexperienced batting line-up and in terms of bowling it is a bit of the same really – Podmore, Milnes aren’t seasoned performers, they’re still in their infancy of their careers really; Matts in his second year and I know that Podders has been around a little bit longer, he’s still establishing himself in the side and he’s still in just his third year with us.”

“It’s a young side and I really do have to keep reminding myself that we are not going to be perfect all the time – they’re going to be learning; they’re going to make mistakes but the learning and development of these guys week in week out is exceptional – they’re a brilliant group to work with and that’s why, as I said at the end of the game, I love this job so much with the attitude they show it really is an absolute honour.

“I have high expectations of this group and when you add your best players back into the group, we will start to become a pretty good side and I do think that sides are beginning to look at us pretty seriously. We know that we’re no where near the finished article – we’ve got to keep improving, we’ve got to be more consistent at what we do but at the moment things are moving up and long may that continue.

With skipper Sam Billings and Joe Denly on England duty, Walker also confirmed that as in 2019, Darren Stevens wont feature in the clubs Blast matches. “T20 is a fast-moving game and let’s face it, a young person’s game,” Walker confessed.

“I think that we want to move forward with this group in this format and we want to give other people an opportunity in this competition. Young bowlers need to play and learn the ropes – I’m not sure that we’re going to benefit from Darren playing in this side and he understands where we’re coming from.

“Knowing Darren, he wants to play every game that the Kent schedule puts up, but we do have to move forward in some areas and T20 is one of them. We need to expose Milnes, we need to expose Stewart, Klaassen – these guys who are going to be around for a while for the club hopefully.

“Now is the time to play these guys – its absolutely right that we give the younger generation now a chance to find their feet and they deserve and will get that opportunity.”

“It’s going to be a very young squad we put out to start against Hampshire – Grant’s played four games; Matt’s played one game; Fred played most of last season for us and has some international T20 experience with the Dutch team; Imran (Qayyum) is still learning the ropes.

“Callum Haggett will play and we knew it was going to be a young inexperienced side and that’s fine with me. I think it’s exciting – these guys want to play and now they’ve got the opportunity we want the guys to play, they need to play, and we want to be able to see what they can do.

“We’ll have Zac Crawley back after his England heroics which is a massive credit to him. I’ve been talking to him during the Test match and to his enormous credit, he’s always said that he’d want to come back and play in the first game.”

“This T20 will undoubtedly be a learning experience – you never know what could happen; it might all click into place and we do brilliantly! I expect we’ll make some mistakes along the way and the learning might be some tough ones, but the ability and skill of these guys is there to see from what we’ve done in the red ball.

“This is a very different format as we know but let’s go and give it a crack and we can only get positives from it! I’m excited about our campaign – other teams are going to be in the same position with no international players, no England T20 players which means it’s going to be healthy and its going to be great to see young English players to step up to the mark.”

One other player who won’t be in the squad for the first game is Heino Kuhn, who has finally become a father this week as Walker explained. “Heino’s wife has finally had her baby – a little girl – which is great news,” the coach said.

“As I’ve said before, Heino and Trudie are on their own over here and with Trudie out of action for a while after the birth, Heino needs some time to get through the next week or so and then hopefully we’ll be able to get some things in place so that he can come back to the Spitfire Ground knowing that everything is fine at home and he’ll play a part hopefully sometime during the competition.”