By Matthew Allen

When it came to end of term reports for the last Championship season, Ed Smith's would have read "most improved player".

Smith tasted the high life with the England Test team

The Kent batsman was the first player to reach 1,000 runs and went on to plunder more than 1,500 at an average of more than 60, including seven centuries - two of them doubles.

But, despite earning a call to England colours against South Africa, Smith does not think he was a significantly better player than the season before.

"It wasn't such a huge jump from my point of view, the media just noticed it because I got picked for England," he told BBC Sport.

"I'd been the third highest run scorer the year before and in each of my last three seasons I'd steadily scored more runs.

"What I did was to convert fifties into hundreds and score faster, but it was just a small improvement on what had been a good three years."

One of the keys to having a successful county side is having a lot of players who have a big stake in trying to get better Ed Smith

But "Steady Eddie" did enjoy the experience of playing Test cricket, scoring 64 in his first innings at Trent Bridge before tailing off with some disappointing scores and being dropped from the side.

"I loved every minute of playing for England last year," he says.

"You are under intense scrutiny the whole day, but you're out there because you want to be under that kind of scrutiny.

"This season I'm going to try to be as hungry as ever to score runs and win games. This year I'm doubly keen to do it given the fact that I've played three Test matches.

Smith likes to be surrounded by highly motivated players

"Obviously this year I'm looking to get back into the England side as my ambition for the summer, along with scoring lots of runs for Kent."

Smith has written a diary of his exploits that will soon hit the bookstores, and one the revelations of last season was his 213 against Warwickshire.

"That was the better of my double hundreds from a psychological perspective because I never really got out of third gear," he says.

"It was more of a grafting innings and it pleased me a lot to be able to bat for that long without being in fantastic form."

The season ended in Smith being picked for the England A tour to India, but the young team failed to win any of their competitive matches.

"I played pretty well in India but was still disappointed not to get a big score. I got starts without going on to get a hundred," Smith recalls.

"We as a team were not playing very well and it's very hard to play in a team that's not winning.

"That was frustrating, but it is always interesting and valuable to tour different countries and absorb different forms of cricket."

KENT 2004 Coach: Simon Willis Captain: David Fulton Overseas players: Mohammad Sami, Andrew Symonds (NB cover sought while Symonds is with Australia) Players in: Mohammad Sami Players out: Mark Ealham, Peter Trego

Looking forward to the forthcoming season, Smith believes Kent have a good chance of claiming some silverware.

"One of the keys to having a successful county side is having a lot of players who have a big stake in trying to get better," he argues.

"The problem comes when you have too many players who are happy with the way they are.

"At Kent we have a number of players in their prime who are pushing on.

"When Kent play well they can beat anyone, but the challenge for us is to be more consistent and eliminate the poor sessions when we lose concentration.

"We're a positive Championship side and it's realistic for us to be champions at the end of the season even if we're not starting as favourites. There's lots to look forward to.

"Mohammad Sami (one of Kent's overseas players this season) produced some of the best bowling I have ever seen for us last season. If he can win a certain number of games then that will be fantastic."