Simon Cook has revealed the level of analysis which went into Kent bringing in winter recruits Michael Cohen and George Garrett.
Former South Africa under-19 international Cohen, 25, and 24-year-old Garrett have both penned two-year contracts ahead of the start of Kent’s 2024 season.
Head coach Matt Walker has already described the duo as “a nice two-fold signing” and director of cricket Cook has outlined why they’re expected to be particular threats at Canterbury’s Spitfire Ground.
He said: “I’ve sat down with (senior data analyst) Dan Weston and (performance analyst) James Tomson, who are part of our analytics team. We’ve looked at what it takes to win here at Canterbury.
“That’s the first thing and actually it leads onto a wider piece of work around what we’re going to do around the pathway and the Academy in terms of what we need to be producing in terms of the attributes of bowlers, for example.
“One of the areas was looking at guys who can hit the top of off (stump) consistently, so that’s where George Garrett’s strengths come in, and why he became an attractive signing for us.
“The other bit with Mikey Cohen was around the left-arm angle and a different trajectory. So, we were looking for something that we didn’t have in the squad which is a bit of pace, left-arm, and he’s a bit more skiddy than all the other bowlers.
“Those are the two main attributes that led us to those two.”
While Cohen and Garrett are among the new faces at Canterbury, they are set to play alongside Jack Leaning, who signed a new long-term Kent deal earlier this year.
The batting all-rounder, 30, has captained Kent 32 times in 118 appearances and expressed an interest in becoming club skipper at the end of last term.
Although Daniel Bell-Drummond got the nod as Kent’s new red-ball skipper, vice-captain Leaning is still clearly a big part of Walker’s plans. He is set to become Spitfires skipper throughout their 2024 Metro Bank One-Day Cup campaign.
On how well former Yorkshire player Leaning had dealt with the captaincy setback, Cook admitted: “It does speak volumes of the man he is.
“He’s come into the club, he has embraced the club, in each of its journeys. He’s passionate about playing for the club and he wants to be everything for the club. That’s why he has signed an extension to his contract.
“We had some honest conversations, they were tough conversations to have, quite rightly after captaining through most of last year because of Sam (Billings) being unavailable.
“But as we said at the time, we felt like we needed to go in a different direction from a leadership perspective and DBD (Bell-Drummond) was the man for the job.
“We also wanted to recognise that Jack had some significant contributions to make, hence why he’s been able to stay on as vice-captain.
“He signed an extension to his contract which is an indication of where we feel he sits within the club and what he has to offer.
“He’s going to captain the One-Day Cup side and will continue to be the great clubman that we know he is. He’s an ever-present fixture.
“In whatever team, he’s almost one of the first names on the team sheet – and that won’t change.”
After only 4.1 overs of play were possible on day one on Thursday in Kent’s latest friendly with Surrey at The Kia Oval, they outscored Surrey on Good Friday.
Skipper Bell-Drummond (52 retired), Ben Compton (49 retired) – playing on his 30th birthday – Leaning (41) and wicketkeeper Harry Finch (39) did most of the damage as Kent put on 213/4 in 37 overs, replying to Surrey’s 184/4 in 39.4 overs.
Garrett (2-24) got among the wickets.
