Dian Forrester has explained the role fellow South African Justin Kemp played in his Kent T20 Blast move.
The overseas all-rounder has linked up with Sam Billings’ Spitfires for the Blast, replacing injured compatriot Senuran Muthusamy.
Forrester played alongside Kent Spitfires captain Sam Billings for Rawalpindi Pindiz in the Pakistan Super League earlier this year.
Billings helped get the 25-year-old over to Canterbury, as did popular former all-rounder Kemp – who played for Kent between 2005 and 2009 – and played in the 2008 Blast final loss to Middlesex at The Rose Bowl.
“We were talking a lot about it in Pakistan,” said Forrester, who made a fine Spitfires bow in a seven-wicket win over Sussex Sharks on Monday after he watched Friday’s victory against Middlesex at Lord’s.
“Sam Billings and Justin Kemp were telling me ‘Oh, it’s a great club! You must get over here’. Luckily, Sam phoned me when they wanted a replacement and I said ‘Yeah, I’m super keen so let’s make it happen.’. I had to go to the IPL and, straight from the IPL, I got on a flight at 5am.
“I landed, got an Uber to Lord’s and was standing outside for 40 minutes, waiting for someone from the team to fetch me! It’s been amazing.
“It happened so quickly and it was so good to make my debut in front of the home crowd, which worked out very nicely.”
It’s been a whirlwind Kent start for Forrester, who has five South Africa T20 caps, with the left-handed batsman and right-arm bowler heading for the UK after a short spell at the Indian Premier League with the Chennai Super Kings.
Forrester made his home T20 Blast debut in front of a crowd of more than 3,000 at Canterbury against Sussex.
He said: “I’ve seen how big Kent is as a county and it’s nice to be part of the history. I really enjoy the players.
“I really love playing with Sam, he’s so passionate, very honest with you, so you always know where you stand with him.
“A few of the boys have had very good careers – the likes of Joe Denly, Zak Crawley and [Tawanda] Muyeye, who is going up – so it’s nice to play with a great group of guys.
“The crowd, I loved that the most. People were just clapping a lot and really enjoying the game.
“That’s probably the best part for me about cricket.”
Forrester produced career-best T20 figures of 3-25 against Sussex before he also played a key role with the bat.
“It’s always nice contributing,” he admitted. “That’s a benefit of being an all-rounder – I love it. It was a good little momentum switch there.
“I don’t think I have bowled a lot of double-wicket maidens in T20s before so that was very good.”
In Kent’s run-chase, Forrester joined Zak Crawley with the side 119-3 and saw them home in reasonably comfortable style.
He revealed: “It was about just taking it ball-by-ball.
“Luckily on one side, it’s sloping down, so the left-right combination worked very nicely. Without talking about it, I took on one side and he took on the other side. We just sort of bounced off each other, which is so good.
“When I was speaking to Tommy, our analyst [James Tomson], he kept saying ‘In the last six overs, you can actually catch-up very quickly’ so there was never any panic or feeling of ‘Wow, we need to get going’. We just took it ball-by-ball.
“It was a brilliant knock from Zak.”
The chance to bat alongside Crawley, whose poor start to the summer had cost him his England Test position, was an experience that Forrester relished.
“It was awesome,” Forrester said. “Obviously, I’ve watched him a lot on TV, playing Test-match cricket. Being out there with him, that was so nice.
“He just showed the composure he has and all the experience he has got from playing at the top level. It was very good to watch.
“I’m very happy he got some runs.”
Forrester more than played his part, as well, hitting an unbeaten 35 off 18 balls in an innings that included four fours and two maximums.
He said: “When I faced that first ball and hit it out the middle, I thought ‘Oh, this is great – what a start!’.
“Then, it was a case of watching the ball and being as clear as possible with my game-plan. Sometimes, the game requires you to play from ball one.
“It required me to go from ball one because the run-rate was telling me that we needed to go at 12-an-over.
“That’s the difference between winning the game and getting close to winning the game.
“Luckily, it came off.”
