KENT'S winter recruit Simon Cook made a curate's egg of a debut in Spitfires' rain-ruined totesport League opener with Derbyshire on Sunday.

The former Middlesex seamer, last season’s leading league wicket-taker, finished his maiden stint for his new county with nought for 42 – but only after conceding 18 runs in his opening over.

The tall right-armer from Oxford made a creditable recovery afterwards and believes Kent were well-placed to go on and win the game.

"Nerves maybe played a part, but it was probably more like apprehension because I felt a little bit ring-rusty going into the game," said Cook after his first nine-over stint.

"Because of all the rain around I haven’t had a competitive bowl for a week or so, so I’d put it down to lack of match practice as much as anything.

"Once the disaster of that first over was out of the way I got into it, got better rhythm and didn’t bowl too badly in those next eight overs.

"Personally it would have been nice to get off the mark wicket-wise and, as a team, we felt chasing 198 to win on that wicket was very achievable, but you can’t compensate for rain."