Skipper Sam Billings has urged his Kent Spitfires side to avoid complacency despite a bright start to the T20 Blast.
Spitfires sit third in the South group, with three wins from four games, ahead of matches at Sussex on Sunday and Essex on Tuesday evening.
“We’re very happy overall,” said Billings. “You can’t be complacent in this group as well.
“It’s a tough group, so you have to be pretty ruthless and clinical every single day.”
Speaking after Sunday’s impressive win at Surrey, who moved above Kent in the table after beating Middlesex on Wednesday night, Billings said: “We’re going to enjoy it.
“It’s a great ground to play cricket. They’re a brilliant side and it’s a big rivalry, certainly for us. They’ll pretend it’s not, but we like beating these guys.
“There’s a long way to go and we have to play them in a reverse fixture, which they’ll be massively up for. But we have to enjoy performances like that.”
Kent’s only setback so far was the home game against Essex when they were well below-par.
Billings didn’t need to say much to get his squad back on track.
“We didn’t have a long chat after that one,” he added. “At T20, you’re going to fail a lot and you’ve got to be bold. You’ve got to be smart, but you’ve got to be bold.
“That was just one of those nights where we were neither – it was just one of those performances.
“A lot of the time in debriefs, you don’t need to tell the blokes who played really well or had an off-night because everyone knows anyway.
“It’s just drawing a line under it, certainly when you have a bad performance, and moving on pretty quickly.
“Like I said, you’ve got to be bold in this game and it’s such a quick turnaround. If you feel sorry for yourself, you’re done for.”
All facets have come to the fore in Kent’s wins so far, with Billings noting the importance of their batting line-up.
“Every single time we’ve played really well, certainly with the bat, it’s been because someone’s got a 50-plus score and enabled people to bat around in those partnerships,” added the skipper.
“In T20 cricket or short-format cricket, one of the top four has to get a substantial score a lot of the time to put in a performance, and that’s what we’ve done.
“A couple of catches went down [at Surrey] but it was a 9.5 [out of 10]. The attitude and everything about it was very good – I don’t want to downplay it at all.”
Billings was also keen that his players enjoyed their downtime this week.
“It’s time to recharge as well,” he added. “Joe Denly, at 40, has played more cricket than anyone and he said you forget with T20, you’re on the whole time, it’s so intense.
“Actually, yes, it’s three hours, but it drains you physically and emotionally.
“So having a few days off to just have it completely off, let people actually forget about the game and recharge, and then hit training leading into that game on Sunday.
“It’s [all about] balance and as you get older, you probably appreciate that a bit more.”
