Kent assistant coach Matt Walker has said he is looking forward to working alongside Jimmy Adams and Rob Key, following his return to the club.

Walker, who spent 16 of the 19 years of his playing career with Kent, rejoined the club last week, leaving a similar position that he had held at Essex since 2011.

Prior to getting started at The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence earlier this week, the former batsman spoke to KSN about looking forward to working with the club’s head coach Jimmy Adams, and Rob Key, a teammate of Walker’s during his playing days at Canterbury.

“I’ve had a chat with Jimmy, I’ve had a chat with Keysy [Rob Key]”, the Gravesend-born former batsman said. “I think we’ll spend the most part of this week just talking through the process of how they go about their things and their training at the moment at Kent and then at this time of year, we start doing plans about pre-season and the early part of the season together.”

“I guess that process will happen pretty quickly as soon as I join the team alongside the new S+C [strength and conditioning coach, Jon Fortescue] and analyst [Michael Najdan] and all the other members of the coaching staff. I think that will probably be at the forefront of the planning as soon as I start.”

Walker has not worked with Adams before, but is looking forward to building up a relationship with the former West Indies captain.

“I’ve spoken to Jimmy and I’m really looking forward to working with him”, he said. “I’ve known him a little bit in the last couple of years since he’s been at Kent. We seem to get on pretty well with each other when we’ve chatted side-by-side in the nets throwing down in the pre-match warm-ups. We had a chat last year at Maidstone during the second team game we both were at. I’m really looking forward to it. He’s obviously got huge experience as a player and his reputation with the West Indies.”

Walker also admitted that he would benefit thanks to his history with the club, and many of the players and staff who he has worked with previously.

“I’m looking forward to working alongside Jimmy and obviously Rob, who I know very well, and obviously Simon [Willis, High Performance Director] also, who I know very well. It’s exciting, and it’s nice to go back home to where it all started for me with a lot of the players and staff who are still there, or people that I already know.

“I’m not starting from ground zero – there are a lot of relationships already in place, not just with the coaching staff and the office staff but also with a lot of the players – a lot of whom I played with, some of them I played against, and some of the younger ones who I know just from being still around in Kent and playing a bit of Kent League cricket over the years and having that contact with those guys anyway. I’m looking forward to it and it should be a really good challenge.”