Kent Cricket head coach Matt Walker backs centurion debutant to score lots of runs this summer if he keeps performing the way he did against Essex

Kent head coach Matt Walker is backing Ben Compton to score lots of runs this summer.

Opener Compton, 28, marked his debut with 129 during the high-scoring draw at Essex to become only the 13th Kent player to score a ton on their first-class debut.

Replying to Essex’s 514 all out, Kent reached 581 before the hosts eased to 68-1 late on day four.

“He is a very calming influence,” Walker said of Compton, who signed a two-year deal with Kent in October.

“The reason we signed Ben Compton was because he’s a left-hander and he bats at the top of the order. He is a bit of an old-fashioned English opener.

“I have watched him a lot since he came in and he knows his game well. He waits for the ball to come into his areas and puts it away.

“That’s the art of batting, isn’t it? You stop the good balls and score off the bad ones.

“Coming to a new club, it gives him a great platform straight away.

“Hopefully that will give him the confidence to do it again. He is a very good player.

“He has scored a lot of runs in 2nd XI cricket for Notts and Kent. He is a run scorer. Perhaps, he has just not had the opportunity.

“He is the sort of player we don’t really have at the moment. We have a lot of natural stroke-players who score quickly, whereas Ben is a mentally strong player who knows his game.

“If he keeps playing like he did, he will score a lot of runs.”

Wicketkeeper Ollie Robinson will retain the captaincy in the absence of injured stand-in skipper Jack Leaning.

Walker expects to be without Leaning and fellow batter Joe Denly (both through hamstring injuries) until around the start of next month, with Robinson named as Kent’s fourth captain this year before a ball had been bowled at Chelmsford.

Despite the high-scoring nature of the