New Kent director of cricket Simon Cook insists there is no rush to make any long-term captaincy calls yet

There is no rush from Kent’s hierarchy to make any captaincy calls.

Sam Billings started 2023 as Kent’s skipper and remains club captain. But he stepped down as Kent captain in four-day cricket in June after a miserable start to the year, being replaced by Jack Leaning.

Leaning also captained Kent at the beginning of their unsuccessful One-Day Cup defence, only for Joe Denly to return from injury and replace him in the latter stages of the 50-over competition.

“We’ll have to think about that over the winter period,” admitted newly-appointed Kent director of cricket Simon Cook.

“I don’t think there’s any reason to jump in and make any rash decisions around that. We have plenty of time before the beginning of next year.

“Jack has done a good job, DBD [Daniel Bell-Drummond] has done a great job when he’s played, and Bilbo [Billings] has done a good job, winning a trophy in 2021 in white-ball cricket.

“There are some other candidates as well.”

One player who will definitely play a key Kent role next year is England international spinner Matt Parkinson who will join on a three-year contract.

Ahead of his permanent switch, he came into Spitfires’ One-Day squad on loan from Lancashire and finished with 17 wickets at 18.47.

Indeed, he was central to most of Kent’s 50-over wins - despite the side, coached by Cook, failing to get out of the group stages.

But Cook wouldn’t commit to saying spin-heavy bowling attacks is exclusively the way Kent will go when Parkinson arrives permanently.

He said: “If you’re signing a guy like Matt Parkinson, you want to be building your attack around that sort of player.

“Are you going to say it’s going to be completely spin-dominated? Probably not because, actually, we have a decent bank of fast