KENT skipper David Fulton has defended his 'all guns blazing' batting tactics despite the side’s likely failure to qualify for next month’s Twenty20 Cup finals in Nottingham.

During the Southern Zone qualifying games the club captain opted to pack his top order with pinch-hitting all-rounders, while securing the late to middle order with technically better batsmen such as himself, Michael Carberry, Geraint Jones and Ed Smith.

The ploy worked once at Beckenham where Andrew Symonds led the charge against Hampshire, but otherwise Fulton's policy of sending in Peter Trego, James Tredwell and Mark Ealham at the top of the order hardly proved an unqualified success.

"We’ve had seam bowlers injured and have had to do things a little bit differently to most others, but tactically it has not been rocket science," said Fulton.

"We stacked the side with batting down to 10 and have gone out there to give it a real crack because I feel it’s just a concentrated form of the one-day game we’ve always played.

"The principles are the same. It's just a little bit more frenetic and you always come in to bat under a pressure situation, but that isn’t a bad thing for county cricketers."

Rather than lay the blame at the feet of his batsmen, Fulton believes the side's bowling and occasionally slap-dash fielding were responsible for their defeats to Middlesex and Surrey.

"We have to get better at our skills, there’s no doubt about that," he added. "I have asked the guys to bowl block-hole, yorker length in these games and they haven’t been able to do that.

"It’s a tough ask I know, particularly when they only have four overs and have to do it straight off, but we ended up at time bowling back of a length and that’s missing the block-hole target by three yards or so.

"They will continue to work hard at these things and they will get it right, but there were some good signs with the emergence of Matthew Dennington, who really looks an all-rounder for the future.

"He’s made of the right stuff. He hits the ball hard and bowled really well in a tense situation against Essex at Chelmsford, he needs to work a little at his fielding, but otherwise he’s shown great promise."