Former West Indies batsman Jimmy Adams aims to be quick out of the blocks with Kent When you talk to top performers and look at the work ethic and how they think you should work you realise these things just run across the board. There is no short cut or magic wand. It is about where you set the bar to start with and consistently back it up with the miles of hard work. There is no other way. Shut your ears to the Jamaican lilt and you could easily be talking to Andy Flower. Adams's message is the same: hard work and an acceptance of personal responsibility are the steps to success. It starts for Adams and Kent with an opening championship match at Headingley against a Yorkshire desperate to win promotion. "This is a chance for the players and myself to be a part of history of this club," Adams says. That is the broad brush bit. The nuts and bolts is that it is going to be hard work - a lot of effort, a lot of sweat, a lot of blood and tears. Hopefully there comes a time when it is just a way of thinking which makes sure that if anyone from the next generation tries to come and look for short cuts it is policed. I have heard stories of Clive Lloyd's team. New players would come in and any issues would not get to Clive. Senior players would say 'it doesn't work like that here, kid'. They show where the bar is and say deal with it. You can feel the great men of Kent, whose names stare down at the current generation from the stands of the St Lawrence Ground, nodding with approval. Living with the pressures of the past is nothing new to Adams. He made his Test debut in 1992 replacing the retired Sir Vivian Richards. The West Indies were a fading force and he joins Kent after a period in which the club have struggled on and off the field. Massive losses of nearly £1.4 million in the past two years have been reversed by the sale of land as part of a redevelopment of the ground. The sight of a mini Sainsbury's store greets visitors and replaces the lime tree as the modern face of the club. A housing development is another part of a massive regeneration of the site. The losses have led to players on large salaries leaving. Joe Denly and Martin van Jaarsveld exited at the end of last summer and Adams has to manage his budget carefully. Winter recruits are a blend of experience and youth, with Michael Powell joining from Glamorgan, Scott Newman from Middlesex and Ben Harmison from Durham. Brendan Nash, a middle-order Jamaican grafter in the Adams mould, joins as overseas player. Mark Davies, a quick bowler from Durham once on the edge of England selection, signed on Wednesday, citing a phone call from Adams as the reason for the switch. Targets are simple: promotion from division two along with making a few quid out of the Twenty20. There is potential here for growth. The club has done well financially given reports I heard going back a few years. The big challenge now is to see if we can match that progress on the field and manage change. Change is needed. Change for the better. We want to create an environment where we can get the best out of the players we have and get good results on the field. We want to play a brand of cricket the players and supporters can be proud of. Will that be a West Indian brand of cricket? Calypso at Canterbury from county cricket's first West Indian head coach? We could talk all day about what that means. I just like to think that over time Kent will develop an approach, a way of thinking that determines how we play. The West Indies will be here this summer and two years working with age groups in Jamaica have left Adams believing the talent still exists. We have raw material. OK some of it very raw because the development structure below the Test team is nowhere near what it should be. It means that Ottis [Gibson, West Indies coach] has to do too much remedial work. I am happy with the way the process is heading but like most people from the Caribbean I would like stuff to happen yesterday. We accept England are favourites. But if England are the team setting the bar then fine, let's see how many sessions, hours and matches we can win against one of the best teams in the world.