“I love it here,” enthused Jack Leaning as he reflects on life with Kent after completing his fourth season with the club. “If anything, if I had known it would be this good, I would have come years ago!”

A thick Yorkshire accent still remains.

But experienced batsman Leaning has become more and more of an integral figure in Kent’s first-team squad since he agreed to join in 2019 - so much so he plans to stay in England this winter, rather than return to Australia where he has regularly turned out for Sutherland in New South Wales.

He continued: “It’s been outstanding. It’s really brought the best out of me as a person and as a player.

“That’s credit to the dressing room, the staff and the club. They have allowed me to be the person I wanted to be, a person I felt was drifting a little bit when I left Yorkshire.

“I’m loving life down here. I’m settled, my fiancé [Ellie] is settled in work and having a good time.

“Hopefully, I’m here for plenty of years to come.”

Leaning spent much of the 2023 summer as Kent’s red-ball skipper.

Indeed, he had been one of the leading candidates to become the new Kent captain after Sam Billings quit as club captain at their end-of-season awards.

It’s a role Leaning admitted he was eager to take on permanently when asked at the end of their 2023 campaign but, with Kent instead naming Daniel Bell-Drummond as Billings’ successor, Leaning vowed: “If it’s somebody else and the club wants to go down a different route, I’ll be the first in line to do whatever is needed to help the person in charge out.”

While Kent didn’t build on white-ball successes in the previous two campaigns, failing to make the 50-over or T20 Blast knockout stages, they did just about avoid County Championship Division 1 relegation again.

The spin of Leaning proved important in their season run-in, with Leaning bowling alongside Aron Nijjar and Indian overseas spinner Yuzvendra Chahal on used September pitches.

He explained how Nijjar - released at the end of the season by Essex - had approached him after fellow spinner Hamid Qadri sustained a campaign-ending calf injury in a 2nds game between Essex and Kent in Billericay to offer his services.

“Credit to Nij,” he said. “After finding out he was getting released from Essex a couple of weeks back, he showed his character.

“He could quite easily have sat there and felt quite sorry for himself or had that fear of ‘I’m going out the game here’. But he sought me out after the game, knowing what had happened to Hamid in the 2nds, and he said: ‘I just want you to know I’m available and I’d love to help you boys out.’

“I think that attitude will stand him in good stead going forward.”

Leaning, Kent’s 2023 fielder-of-the-year, himself chipped in with four wickets in the match in their season-ending draw with Lancashire at Canterbury.

Overall, though, Leaning struggled to hit the heights he had done previously with the bat, particularly in red-ball cricket.

He assessed: “It’s not been a fantastic season for me from a red-ball perspective.

“I was pretty pleased with how I played in the 50-over competition. The hundred against Essex here typified that.

“But as a senior player, I feel like I’ve got more to offer. I have had three quite good years at Kent since I’ve moved down.

“This year, for whatever reason, it’s not been as good but I’m just as keen as anyone to put that right.”

It was a largely disappointing summer for Kent, although they did stay up.

“I think we’re always improving as a team,” suggested Leaning.

“When you look at the squad, generally, we’ve got quite a good mix of senior and a lot of young players at the moment.

“We’ve not been blessed with our injury record this year which, hopefully, we’ll change next year. Then, there will be people in and out as well.

“As a team, we pride ourselves on sticking together through the tough times. Hopefully, we can enjoy the good times when they come.”

Kent again had been left facing the prospect of relegation going into the final month of the campaign and - again - did enough when it mattered with three draws leaving them third-bottom and Middlesex relegated alongside Northamptonshire.

Leaning said: “If anyone out there knows, why when September comes along, we start to turn up and get the results we need, I’d happily come and have a coffee or a beer with you and talk it over! I don’t know what it is.

“But if you produce when your backs are against the wall, I guess that’s a sign of your character as a group and, when the chips are down, you can fight together to achieve your common goal.

“If we can start to do that in April, May, June and July first, then I think we’ll be much better off.”

Kent’s fate had, in fact, been left out of their hands in the final hour of the summer.

With their encounter finishing in a draw, they were reliant on Nottinghamshire to see off Middlesex to keep them up. Peter Moores’ men were victorious - just.

Asked if there had been agonising times in Kent’s dressing room as the Nottinghamshire match was played to a conclusion, Leaning replied: “Yeah but that’s what makes sport so special.

“If it was so cut and dry - and the best teams always won and the worst teams always lost - no one would ever watch it. Championship cricket really has shown that.

“There were results you wouldn’t expect and results that have caused a great deal of drama and a great deal of stress in various different dressing rooms around the country.

“It shows that Championship cricket still massively has got its place on the cricket spectrum.

“Hopefully, we can add to that next year.”