Min Patel says it's great that Kent have three specialist spinners on their books, the problem however is trying to find them a place in the team.

James Tredwell, Adam Riley and Imran Qayyum all hope to be pushing for selection this summer but former slow left-armer Patel feels the lot of the modern day spinner is getting increasingly harder.

Mumbai-born Patel made his Kent debut in 1989 and took 630 wickets in 208 First Class matches before retiring due to a recurring elbow injury in February 2008.

Capped twice by England he was among the country's leading championship wicket takers in with 79 in 1994 and during his career bowled no less than 7464.5 overs.

Contrast that with 26-year-old Riley, who has played just 53 times since his First-Class debut in 2011 and not at all in the championship last summer.

Qayyum, 24, has a mere five First-Class appearances to his name – three of which came last summer – while even former England man Tredwell was restricted to just six championship starts in 2017, all but one of which came in the opening five matches.

The 36-year-old failed to bowl in two of those and was only given five overs in another and there says 2nd XI coach Patel, lies the real problem for modern-day spinners.

Patel, who is also Kent's lead spin coach, explained: "I can't think of any other clubs that have three specialist spinners, they might have some batters who offer some spin options so we're quite lucky in that regard. The problem we have now in county cricket is that the spinners are bowling less and less overs.

"It's a tough gig now bowling spin in county cricket, it's not an easy thing to do but you're hoping that if the summer dries out we'll get some surfaces for our spinners to thrive on."

Kent's opening championship game against Gloucestershire saw 35 wickets go down for 435 runs at the Spitfire Ground St Lawrence, and, after the rain which fell during the spring pitches are unlikely to favour spinners any time soon.

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Patel, 47, added: "We've got three guys competing for spots which is very healthy but you can only compete for the spots if you get a chance to bowl and that's going to be the problem not just for Kent but with spin up and down the country – the volume of overs the spinners get in.

"Every time England tour the Sub-continent that line gets trotted out 'Why's the spin cupboard so bare?'

"Well it's not that the spin cupboard's necessarily bare it's more that they're not bowling enough to understand the game.

"They need the volume of overs it takes to get the experience to bowl in different conditions, at different paces there's a bit of a knowledge drain with spinners on that sort of stuff.

"They've done some effective work with England's one-day bowlers so we're seeing England's one-day spinners being effective but in the terms of the longer format, the art of spin it's a challenge now as a spin coach."