Key unlocks Kent potential
Ryan McLaren and Robert Key celebrate their four-wicket win in the final
Robert Key hailed the massive improvement made by Kent in one-day cricket after they lifted the Twenty20 Cup for the first time by overcoming Gloucestershire by four wickets in the final at Edgbaston.
A hat-trick from Ryan McLaren helped restrict Gloucestershire to 146 for eight and then Darren Stevens' unbeaten 30 helped the Spitfires gain the 13 required off the wayward final over from Carl Greenidge with three balls to spare.
Key, whose unbeaten 68 had helped Kent defeat Sussex in the last four, said: "This feels pretty good. A couple of years ago I never thought we would get to the quarter-final stage yet alone win it.
"To win it in the first time we've got here is special. I feel a bit stupid at times dancing around too much but I am pretty happy inside.
"I wasn't watching the last over. I came out when we needed two to win. I was in the dressing room. Winning it is a brilliant feeling.
"We set our stall out to do better in one-day cricket. Since taking on the captaincy our one-day form has been so bad at Kent that we could only go one way. We have recruited well and our fielding has got better.
Key shows his dissent after being out to a dubious catch
"As for myself I had always seen it as my goal to play Test cricket and one-day cricket took a back seat but this is a great feeling to win this trophy.
"This win will mean a lot to people at Kent. There are a lot of good people behind the scenes and on the coaching side like Graham Ford, Paul Farbrace and Simon Willis.
"They have done a lot of work and taken a lot of stick over the last few years. They deserve this."
Key could incur an ECB fine after showing dissent following his dismissal against Gloucestershire to a low by Hamish Marshall at mid-wicket.
He said: "I got given out and, as I was walking off, the players had a monitor by the boundary and they say it had bounced.
"All I could think about was Kevin Pietersen with England recently when he turned around after being given out but he has got a bit more clout than me to do that!"
Disappointed Gloucestershire captain Jon Lewis admitted McLaren's hat-trick had effectively ended their hopes of setting a more competitive target.
"It was a very close game, a good game of cricket, but I thought we were maybe a little bit short of runs by 15 runs and when the guy came in and got a hat-trick it put the skids under our innings a little bit," he said.
McLaren's hat-trick put the skids under Gloucestershire
"It's very tricky Twenty20 if you keep losing wickets throughout the innings it's quite hard to keep momentum. You need partnerships in all one-day cricket to build when you're batting. It was still defendable but we felt when we went out we could defend that total.
"Any hat-trick in any game is a game-changer but we still had our chances to win the game, but unfortunately we didn't take them and Kent kept their composure and took them."
The four-wicket defeat denied Lewis the opportunity to add to Gloucestershire's amazing run of one-day success in recent years - they have won seven trophies since lifting the Benson and Hedges Cup in 1999.
But Lewis insisted he was not going to try and compete with previous successes and had his sights set firmly on the future and turning Gloucestershire into a competitive outfit in all forms of cricket.
"We all like winning," he said. "I like to win as much as anyone but I don't care what we've done in the past, it's about how we play in the future and how we play today, now.
"There are expectations from the fans because we've done well in the past and we're a good one-day side but I'd also love to be a fantastic four-day team and pick up some more trophies."
