New year, new tactics. Three-day wickets and two spinners when the sun comes out.

“I don't think I'm telling you or any of our opponents, giving away any secrets, that the quality of our bowling attack is good, but the depth isn't great,” Hollioake said. “What we've tried to do to cover that up is, obviously at the beginning of the season, we'll (prepare) wickets, which enable us to hopefully get games over and done within three days.”

“As the season goes on and the sun dries out (the wickets) we’ll hopefully go double spin and reduce the seam bowling overs that way.”

In other words, the pitches will no longer be quite so benign: Kent have decided to give themselves a chance, after two seasons spent watching the opposition brutalise their makeshift bowling units. The nadir was arguably the final game of last season, when Derbyshire made 698 for six against an attack that featured eight different bowlers and Matt Parkinson bowled 38 overs for his three for 188. This time around Kent are trying to be smarter about managing workloads.