Kent Spitfires bowler Nathan Gilchrist will be eased back to action during One Day Cup group stages

Nathan Gilchrist’s return from injury has to be in the limelight - but Kent won’t rush him back.

The 23-year-old paceman featured for only the second time this season during Sunday’s One Day Cup defeat to Leicestershire at Beckenham due to injury.

Not surprisingly, Gilchrist looked well short of match sharpness. But it’s a double-edged sword for Kent who want to ease him back into action but can’t offer any 2nd XI cricket at this stage of the summer.

“He's come into this game having only really bowled at batters in the last week,” said interim head coach Simon Cook after Gilchrist returned 0-65 in six overs for the Spitfires on Sunday.

“Having that game readiness is not there, having said that there’s no good entry point into this tournament for him because there is no second-team cricket going on at the moment.

“There is no time he can get game-time so our view is that he’s ready to go, let’s get him in there and ready to face the fire first up.

“Yes, there was a bit of ring rustiness there but he showed in periods he was able to execute his yorkers really well. He’s got pace, he’s got that X-factor.

“We’ve challenged him to get wickets up front and not worry about the runs and he created a couple of opportunities, and went past the bat a couple of times.

“His entry into this tournament is going to be limited anyway because of him coming back so he’s not going to play back-to-back games, more than likely he’ll be rotated out of the next game purely on his back-to-bowling programme and not necessarily on his performance that he put in today.”

One Day Cup captain Joe Denly will also miss the game at Blackpool against Lancashire today (Wednesday), although he has travelled with the squad and could return either on Friday