Kent won the Twenty20 Cup final by four wickets

Key's men were cruising early on but scraped home with three balls left, courtesy of Darren Stevens' 30 off 21.

"Two overs before (the end) I was back in the dressing room kicking things around," said Key.

"I came out when we needed two. To win it in the first time we've got here is special."

Kent won the toss and elected to field and limited Gloucestershire to 146-8 off their 20 overs, with South African all-rounder Ryan McLaren taking a hat-trick in the 17th over.

Gloucestershire skipper Jon Lewis led a crucial rearguard to add some respectability to the total, but despite reducing a rampant Kent to 127-6, the Gladiators were unable to contain Stevens and partner Yasir Arafat at the death.

They kept their head and stayed composed and that's why they've got the trophy Gloucestershire captain Jon Lewis

Former England star Key made 18 before falling to a controversial catch from Hamish Marshall, and could be fined by the ECB for his angry reaction as he walked off.

But he added: "A couple of years ago I never thought we would get to the quarter-final stage yet alone win it.

"We set our stall out to do better in one-day cricket. Since taking on the captaincy our one-day form has been so bad at Kent that we could only go one way. We have recruited well and our fielding has got better.

"As for myself I had always seen it as my goal to play Test cricket and one-day cricket took a back seat but this is a great feeling to win this trophy.

"It's the biggest day in domestic cricket - not many of us get to play in front of packed crowds like this. They've been brilliant.

McLaren won the man-of-the-match award after he removed Gladiators' dangerman Hamish Marshall (65), Steve Adshead and Ian Fisher in successive deliveries.

"Amazing. It's been an awesome experience," he said.

"It will take a while to settle in. It's something special you can remember for the rest of your life.

"It was getting a bit nervy but I'm just happy we came out with it today."

Gloucester's Lewis rued the missed chances that came his side's way.

He said: "I thought we'd done a great effort to pull them back, to be honest.

"It was a very close game, a good game of cricket, but I thought we were maybe a little bit short of runs by 15 runs and when the guy came in and got a hat-trick it put the skids under our innings a little bit.

"It's very tricky Twenty20 if you keep losing wickets throughout the innings it's quite hard to keep momentum. You need partnerships in all one-day cricket to build when you're batting.

"It was still defendable but we felt when we went out we could defend that total.

"Any hat-trick in any game is a game-changer but we still had our chances to win the game, but unfortunately we didn't take them and Kent kept their composure and took them."