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Kent take on the Bears in cup quarter finals

Spitfires' skipper Rob Key believes cup holders Kent are an even better outfit this summer than last.
Spitfires' skipper Rob Key believes cup holders Kent are an even better outfit this summer than last.

Warwickshire Bears v Kent Spitfires

With one cup final appearance already in the bag, Spitfires go in search of their second big limited overs day out this evening when they take on Warwickshire in the quarter finals of the Twenty20 Cup at Edgbaston.

With a place at the Rose Bowl finals day on Saturday, July 26 up for grabs for the winners, Rob Key's side travel to Birmingham full of confidence after securing successive wins in cup, championship and trophy.

The losing finalist in 2003, Warwickshire were ranked fourth at the start of this year's T20 event with a win percentage of 58 from their first five years in the short form game.

With the likes of Darren Maddy, who is fit again after fracturing his thumb and a former member of Leicestershire's ace T20 unit, and Neil Carter, Jim Troughton, Ian Salisbury, Ant Botha and Tin Groenewald, Bears have plenty of new faces and an exciting blend of youth and experience.

They look set to play Tony Frost as their wicketkeeper and pinch-hitting batsmen ahead of Tim Ambrose and, with the likes of Jonathan Trott, Maddy and Carter, have plenty more batting fire power to take advantage of the first six overs of field restrictions.

Their game plan has worked wonderfully well thus far, indeed they finished top of the Midlands and West qualifying division with six wins and only one defeat from their 10 starts, that having already qualified and when losing narrowly to Northamptonshire in their final zonal game.

Yet not even The Bears, in front of a likely 10,000 crowd, will fancy taking on the holders and this very much in-form Kent team.

Spitfires will hope that Azhar Mahmood is fully fit after suffering slight reaction in his back folloiwng Friday's win in Durham,while Simon Cook will also force his way back into the side after missing the Riverside clash, where Robbie Joseph was preferred.

Looking ahead to the side's return to the scene of their Cup success in 2007, Spitfires skipper Rob Key said: "Last year, wining the Twenty20 Cup proved the start of something for us as a club and a unit, but this year I feel we are in an even better position because we're an even better side.

"It's nice to get into these finals of course, but unfortunately that really doesn't matter if you're not successful, you've still got to win them.

"So this is just another step in the process and if we're lucky enough to get away from Edgbaston with a favourable result then I'll be even happier next week than I am right now."

Kent will pick from the same fully-fit, 13-man squad on duty for last Friday's Friends Provident Trophy semi-final win in Durham for their Birmingham showdown which is also televised live by Sky Sports from 5.40pm.

With a poor weather forecast for later in the day, the two sides will meet on Thursday's reserve day at a time to be dictated by the ECB should tonight's game have to be abandoned.

Kent from: Key, Denly, van Jaarsveld, Kemp, Stevens, Mahmood, Jones, McLaren, Arafat, Tredwell, Cook, Joseph, Walker.

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