Kent bowling coach Robbie Joseph on his son’s reaction as he rejoins the county from Gloucestershire

Few would have been happier than one person in particular when Robbie Joseph completed his Kent comeback - his son!

Joseph has recounted how the eight-year-old was left in tears at Canterbury’s Spitfire Ground last May as Joseph’s then-team Gloucestershire were beaten by seven wickets in Kent’s opening game of their T20 Blast campaign.

So, when the opportunity to replace new director of cricket Simon Cook as bowling coach arose, ex-bowler Joseph jumped at the chance.

He said: “I sort of knew that, when I heard Simon was taking a job as a director, it was possible the job might come up.

“So, I kept an eye and an ear open, saying ‘If this happens, there’s the possibility for me to apply for a job to go home.’

“It wasn’t that I wasn’t enjoying where I was. I loved the work I was doing and was grateful for the opportunity given to me by Gloucestershire and (performance director) Steve Snell and (then-head coach) Dale Benkenstein.

“But I’m a Kent boy. I’d played a lot of my cricket here and grew up here, and my son lives nearby in Ramsgate.

“From a family point-of-view, it makes it easier with my availability to see him.

“The job came up. One of the things that happened was he came here last year and saw Gloucestershire play Kent in the first game in the T20 Blast.

“Gloucestershire lost and he was crying.

“That evening he said to me ‘Oh, why don’t you just work here, daddy?’ I said ‘Because there’s no job here, darling.’ Then, the job came up and I thought ‘Well, I can’t really not apply for this job.’

“Luckily enough, I was successful in that process.”

Joseph made 110 appearances for Kent between 2004 and 2011 and in 2014, in which he took 230 wickets.

He had been Gloucestershire lead bowling coach permanently from November