'I'm feeling great with the ball': Spinner's hat-trick reward for form

But one bucket-list item for all bowlers - whether in the country or on the international stage - had eluded the prolific spinner and four-time division one premiership player throughout a career featuring more than 200 top-flight wickets.

Until now.

The Tigers tweaker snared his first ever hat-trick in his side's Warrnambool Twenty20 Cup win against Koroit on Thursday, November 30, taking 4-17 on his home deck.

Kenna, who works for Duggan Civil, trapped Saints all-rounder Patrick Brady LBW to achieve the feat, with Patrick Sinnott and Kurt Howard his other two victims.

It turned into a match-winning haul of wickets with the game in the balance still at the time.

"I wasn't really thinking about the hat-trick to be honest, I was probably more focused on the scenario of the game at the time and how we could win," he told The Standard.

"But it's pretty cool. I didn't think I'd get it. Some of the best cricketers don't ever get hat-tricks and at the end of the day, I thought 'if I get it I get it', and was lucky enough in the end."

The multiple country week representative player - he's in the squad again this season - is in the midst of another excellent campaign at division one level despite the added responsibility on his shoulders.

While focused on his first leadership gig on-field as his side sits sixth on a log jammed ladder after defeating Northern Raiders in the previous round, the right-armer's individual form has been as excellent as ever with 17 wickets at an average of just nine indicative of his importance.

He said he was pleased with how the ball was coming out but admitted he was still adjusting to how to balance his role with the ball and captaincy.

"I'm feeling great with the ball actually, but you just have to work that in with your captaincy a little bit and make sure you're doing the right thing by the team all the time," he said.

"We've got a lot of new players in division one. We're a young group and I'm a new captain. It's all about learning and when to bring myself on and so forth.

"The best thing is I've got Matt Petherick, my last captain at Russells Creek, alongside me. He dealt with me with my bowling and he's the best person to lean on."

With two-day cricket set to launch after the Christmas break after two years without the longer format, Kenna said he was looking forward to the challenge it would provide.

"It's going to be great, two-day cricket is going to show a lot around the league especially with what we've dealt with over the last few years with COVID and rain delays," he said.

"It's going to change things. It's exciting to know you can bowl 20 overs in a day, and really settle into a spell as a bowler.

"For the team we'll lean on the experience. Right now it's really week-by-week, we're really young and we've played some unreal games and some terrible games but I feel like when we're on, we can beat anyone.

"We've still got two one-dayers to go and then we'll talk about two-day cricket just before the Christmas break but I'm looking forward to it."