Jack Leaning is hoping a strong showing with the bat in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup will see him move up the order for Kent Spitfires.
Leaning has come in at seven in the first two games of the 50-over competition this summer, scoring 37 against Sussex and an unbeaten 68 against Durham.
“I’d definitely like to get a bit higher up the order,” he said. “I think I’ve probably got more skill-set to show than batting that lower down.
“Obviously, at the moment, they’re trying to use my seniority towards the middle and back-end of an innings, which is fine, but hopefully if I can keep putting some scores on the board and keep getting the team into positions where we can compete, then I can push my case to get back up the order where I’ve batted the last couple of years.”
It means Leaning is presented with the challenge of batting with the tail, although he pointed out he’s used to that in the shorter format of the game.
“It’s one that I’ve done a lot in T20 cricket so it’s not unfamiliar territory,” said Leaning.
“I can say I know my white-ball game pretty inside out so I’m more than capable of batting anywhere in white-ball cricket.
“But I’m just trying to use my experience to take games deep if we’re in a tough scenario or just take a little bit of time to get in and then hit the accelerator early if we’re flying as a team.
“But it’s my role at the moment and I’m going to have to try and do what I can for the team.
“I feel really confident to go out there and score freely and score the way I want and try and put some pressure back on the opposition.
“I feel in a good place with my white ball game at the moment. I’ve played pretty nicely all season in that format.”
It’s hard to believe it was Leaning’s first half-century of this summer, although his role in T20 cricket doesn’t lend itself to extended time in the middle.
He’s such a talented player so it was a welcome sight for Kent fans to see him in full flow again at Beckenham.
“It’s been a tricky year,” he said. “It’s, obviously, tough to get many half-centuries batting at seven in T20 cricket as well, which is why I was kind of hoping to get up the order again in this format of the game, like I have done the last few years and score lots of runs.
“But red ball, it’s not gone my way this year, but that’s just the way that things go sometimes. I’m hoping that I can keep my form in this competition and hopefully that will lead into a nice end to the season in red ball if I can get myself back in the team.”
On his red-ball form, Leaning said: “It’s been one of those years where I felt like I had a lot of starts early season.
“I had a bit of misfortune, as well. A couple of poor umpiring decisions when I got to 40 twice, which has kind of killed me a little bit.
“If you get a score early season, it’s amazing how much different your perspective is and mentally you see the game in a very different scenario.
“I’ve been doing a lot of work with Stevo (Darren Stevens) behind the scenes to try and get back to where I want to be.
“I think in the last couple of months, certainly in the T20 and into this competition now, I feel in a very different place mentally to what I did at the start of the season, where I was just battling with my form and trying to get a score.
“Like I say, if I can keep scoring runs in this format of the game, I think that carries over nicely into the red ball game at the end of the season.
“I look back at a lot of footage and I’ve been for a couple of hits with our old batting coach from last year (Toby Radford) and he said technically and on the eye there’s not a great deal that’s different.
“I tweaked a couple of things with Stevo recently that helped me find my rhythm a bit more.”
Kent will return to One-Day Cup action against Warwickshire today and host Lancashire at Beckenham this Sunday before they visit Middlesex at Radlett on Tuesday.
“White-ball cricket’s always about momentum,” said Leaning.
“If we can get ourselves on a roll similar to T20 and try and peak at the right time in the competition, hopefully, we can find ourselves in the knockout stages.”
