THERE will be a sense of déjà vu at The Mote in Maidstone tomorrow (Wednesday) when the players from Kent and Warwickshire do battle for the third time in as many weeks in three separate competitions.

Kent entertain in-form Benson and Hedges Cup winners Warwickshire over the next four days for their seventh county championship match of the summer and the first game of this year's Maidstone Festival.

The score between the sides stands at one game apiece going into the county town clash, Kent having landed a crushing 128-run Cheltenham Gloucester Trophy win in Canterbury on June 19, only to slip to an unsatisfactory 19-run defeat in Sunday’s rain-affected National League tie in Birmingham.

Kent will be buoyed by their six wicket championship win in Liverpool, however, where they chased 360 – the fourth highest winning total in club history – to secure the third victory of the Frizzell County Championship campaign.

While Kent have risen to fourth in the table, this week’s visitors Warwickshire remain in the last of the three first division relegation berths despite back-to-back championship wins against Leicestershire and Somerset.

Kent will again be without injured club captain Matthew Fleming, so four-day skipper David Fulton is unlikely to change a winning side. Although doubts remain over the form of batsmen Matthew Walker and Ed Smith, Fulton seems certain to stick with the squad on duty in Aigburth last week against Lancashire.

Other than Fleming (thigh strain), Kent’s only other injury doubt surround wicketkeeper Paul Nixon, who continues to play despite a swollen knee. Understudy Geraint Jones, who impressed against India recently and who travelled to Birmingham as a precaution on Sunday, will again be placed on stand-by for the England tourists Nixon, who believes the inflamed joint may require key-hole surgery this winter.

Warwickshire will be without spinner Ashley Giles on England duty and also have a doubt over their first-choice wicketkeeper Keith Piper, who has a finger injury.

The sides last met here in the championship back in 1999 when Kent secured victory in a low-scoring match despite a hat-trick by then Warwickshire skipper, Tim Munton.

Kent from: Fulton (capt), Key, Smith, Symonds, Walker, Nixon, Ealham, Golding, Khan, Patel, Saggers, Tredwell, Jones.