By Glenn Pearson
Kent skipper Rob Key is edging his way closer to a return to first-team action with head coach Paul Farbrace quietly optimistic his captain could make an appearance this week.
Key has been out of action for three weeks with a broken finger, sustained in a championship match against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl. The 30-year-old missed the conclusion of the Friends Provident t20 campaign and last week’s championship clash with Somerset, but could make a surprise return for the visit of Essex on Thursday.
Farbrace said: “He has a chance possibly of playing in the Essex game, but even then that will only be three weeks and we were told three or four weeks that he would be out.
“He is not someone that misses games unless he really has to and he is probably going to have another x-ray to see if the bone has knitted together, and once he has done that he will be able to have a hit. I don’t think he will be too far away.”
Having the club’s influential skipper back in the side will no doubt be a major boost for Kent, whose main aim is to stay up in Division One of the LV= County Championship this summer.
Farbrace expects Key to be raring to go when he returns and believes time spent watching from the sidelines, in some respects, may have done the right-handed batsman a degree of good.
“In some ways it may be, and I wouldn’t say a blessing in disguise, but it might actually turn out to work in our favour because he has had a couple of weeks break, is refreshed and has cleared his head so he can think about his game and the team,” he said.
POSTED: 27/07/2010 08:27:49
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