Durham will looking to bounce back from Friday night’s Metro Bank One Day Cup defeat to Somerset when they travel to The County Ground, Beckenham to face Kent.
Ryan Campbell has named an unchanged squad of 13 as Durham look for their second win of the competition and put Friday’s four wicket defeat behind them.
Alex Lees and Ben Raine remain unavailable with their workloads being managed during a busy campaign, while Campbell is hopeful Codi Yusuf will have recovered from illness which kept out of the visit to Taunton.
Ollie Robinson will skipper the side against his former county in the absence of Lees whilst Stanley McAlindon is also in contention for his first outing in 2025.
Kent suffered defeat to Sussex Sharks in their opening game on Thursday going down by 3 wickets at Arundle Castle, having played just the one game so far in Group B of the Metro Bank One Day Cup.
The Spitfires are missing just three players to the Hundred with Zak Crawley, Sam Billings, Tawanda Muyeye away and are one of counties not to be hugely affected by the short format competition.
Words from Will Rhodes
It’s a bitter-sweet feeling. Obviously, I’m pleased to have been able to chip in with a decent individual performances, but the result is what really matters and we’re all disappointed.
We did well to make it as close a game as we did after a difficult start, but you have to acknowledge the opposition sometimes, and Somerset are a very fine white ball unit.
They played well and we weren’t quite at the races. Losing those early wickets put us under a bit of pressure and it was a matter of just playing steadily and ensuring we put some sort of score on the board that would give the bowlers a chance. Haydon Mustard is a young player, but he did really well to help me build a partnership, and Paul Coughlin played nicely to change the tempo and get us up to 255.
We kept chipping away with the ball and taking wickets, but the Rew brothers played really nicely and, in the final analysis, we were probably about 20 runs short.
Squad v Kent Spitfires (10 August)
Colin Ackermann, Scott Borthwick, Paul Coughlin, George Drissell, Emilio Gay, Mitchell Killeen, Stanley McAlindon, James Minto, Haydon Mustard, Will Rhodes, Luke Robinson, Ollie Robinson*+, Codi Yusuf
Opposition Corner
Captain: Grant Stewart and Harry Finch
2024 Position: Seventh (Group A)
2024 Most Runs: Jack Leaning (262)
2024 Most Wickets: Matt Parkinson (12)
Why they can win the competition: Only three first-teamers are playing in The Hundred and the white-ball squad looks significantly stronger than the red. Kent won this competition as recently as 2022 and six of the team that surprised a full-strength Lancashire in that final are still with the club, although whether the Warwickshire-bound Nathan Gilchrist will be selected is uncertain.
Player to watch: Harry Finch keeps on reinventing himself. A player who openly admits he wasted the first part of his career with Sussex, he got a second chance at Kent, taught himself to keep wicket and this year has starred at both number three and as an opener in the Vitality Blast. Asked what he’d try his hand at next, he replied: “football”.
Young gun: Orpington-born, batting all-rounder Ekansh Singh has broken into the Rothesay County Championship side this season and recently starred for the England Men U19s, making a century in the second Youth Test at Chelmsford. The 19-year-old also went to school in Tonbridge, a town that’s nurtured talent including Colin Blythe, Colin Cowdrey and Ed Smith.
Final thought: Politics derailed Kent’s 2024 campaign – Ben Compton was sidelined, reportedly due to his contract situation, and Kent sorely missed his ability to pace an innings, as a bowler-heavy line-up threw away a chance of qualification. This time round the business has been done early, with Compton and Joey Evison, player-of-the-match in the 2022 final, both signing new deals while leg-spinning all-rounder Mohammed Rizvi has been signed after impressing with the 2nd XI.
Match Centre
The Club’s match centre will be in operation for the fixture with live scorecards, statistics & video highlights as they happen. You can watch the game live via Durham’s match centre and Kent’s YouTube channel. Durham Cricket will have full coverage on social media, with a full match report at the close.