Saggers' strict discipline enough to hurt Somerset

Kent completed an excellent week, in which they announced the signing of the Australian Test captain Steve Waugh as a replacement for Andrew Symonds, with a dismantling of relegation candidates Somerset.

They are the only realistic challengers to Surrey at the top of the table and although the Brown Hatters may be out of reach, Kent can impose themselves on the rest of the division and consider next season as possibly their year after coming third in 2001 and likely runners-up this year.

Waugh, who will play in four Championship matches, will add steel to a young side and no doubt appreciate the endeavour and persistence that the Kent bowlers are showing. David Fulton, the captain, may not be embarrassed by the riches that Waugh has enjoyed with Australia – do I throw the ball to Glenn McGrath or Shane Warne? – but he does have Martin Saggers.

Martin Who? The man who has taken 52 Championship wickets this season, and took 63 and 57 in the two previous seasons. This puts him at the very top of the county game, and when he is well supported by the enthusiastic Amjad Khan and sagacious Mark Ealham, Kent have a formidable seam attack.

Saggers bustles in to the crease, stays tall through the delivery stride and pitches the ball up. With his natural action shaping the ball away from the right-hander, he has many ways in which to take a wicket. The slips and keeper wait expectantly for the edge, gully and the cover fielders for the uppish drive that slides off the face of the bat, and the umpire for the ball that straightens off the pitch and into the pads.

Impressively he maintains a strict discipline and rarely resorts to bumpers, which rapidly become ineffective when overused. Instead he uses the short ball as a surprise. Peter Bowler was certainly surprised to see his attempted pull-shot lob back to the bowler off the splice.

Fittingly, it was a break-back that broke Somerset's back when the barnacle-like Rob Turner was caught on the crease and in front. Saggers finished with 5 for 42. If Khan can develop more strength and stamina he will improve his second innings' performances and add considerably to his tally of 45 Championship wickets. This is why Kent are one of the premier sides in the country. They bowl disciplined lines, field aggressively and catch just about anything that moves towards the slips.

The signing of Waugh will give them something more, though, a presence that Fulton thinks they lack at present. "We are an amiable bunch and are not sledgers, but what we need is a real presence on the field," he said.

"Waugh has that. He has a brooding menace at gully that tells the opposition he is at them every ball of every day. Recently we have lost a couple of high-profile games that we should have won so, by signing him, we are trying to learn how to win games that we have no right to.

"It is about developing a mental fortitude that gets us dominating overs, sessions and games rather than occasionally letting things drift. Who better is there than Waugh for that? He has done it for years at every level and that is what we want." Who better indeed?