Former Kent captain David Fulton has praised his old teammate Darren Stevens, as the all-rounder kicks off his benefit year with his adopted county.

Stevens, who turns 40 in April, joined Kent after being released by Leicestershire in 2004, with Fulton the captain who brought him to the club.

In the 11 seasons since then, “Stevo”, as he is affectionately known, has shown himself to be one of the most consistent, match-winning county pros around, regularly turning games in Kent’s favour with bat and ball.

Perhaps two of his stand-out performances came in the 2013 season, where Stevens swept the board at Kent’s Player of the Year event after an unbeaten 205 on the final day of the season to beat Lancashire, and a 44-ball hundred to help his side chase 338 to beat Sussex in the YB40 competition.

As the man who brought him to the club, Fulton holds the all-rounder in great esteem, and was host at the launch lunch of Stevens’ benefit year.

“He’s been a fantastic servant – a really, really humble guy that everyone wants to come and support”, Fulton said.

“It’s exactly why benefits were invented – for this kind of man. It’s a pleasure to be here supporting him, and hopefully he’ll have a cracking year.”

The former skipper admitted, however, that signing Stevens was something of a risk back in 2004, and that the Leicester-born man’s stats have improved somewhat markedly in the intervening 12 years.

“When we signed him 10 or 11 years ago, no-one’s going to lie, it was a punt. I remember going to the cricket committee – [he averaged] 28 with the bat, 68 with the ball, he’d taken six wickets for Leicestershire – we were looking for an all-rounder, and he fit the bill – just!“, Fulton explained.

Fulton’s instinct proved to be an excellent one – Stevens has now amassed nearly 24,000 runs across all formats, and picked up 537 wickets so far in his career.

The former Kent skipper also praised his ex-teammate’s character, at a time where many modern sportsmen are seen as rather a long way removed from the everyday man on the street.

“People want to support him, I think, because he’s so humble and unassuming”, Fulton explained. “He’s quite old school. You see the top sportsmen in this day and age – they swan around, they’re a little bit above things – he’s a man of the people, and he’ll talk to anyone.”

This calm, friendly attitude also reflects in the way that Stevens trains and plays the game, according to Fulton.

“He’s very low maintenance, Darren”, he said.

“I think one of the things we realised pretty early on was that he was very different, and we gave him enough rope for him to be different. You couldn’t really straightjacket him.

“There were times when he was frustrating, like all players. Our guys would net quite hard and train quite hard, and Darren would sometimes walk around nets, and I’d say: “Do you want a bat?” and he’d say “No”, and just saunter around looking at the clouds.

“That was him visualising what he was going to do the next day, and he wouldn’t hit balls, and you’d be like: “Well this is strange, this is different. Hold on, let’s just see how it pans out.”

“If he’d have got five noughts in a row, we might have said “Darren, you need to net harder”. But he’d go out and get a hundred, and you’d think: “Well, if that’s the way he wants to do it, who are we to tell him differently?! Let him do the things that he wants to do”, and thank goodness it worked!

“He’s very much his own man, and he’s done great, so good on him.”

Picture supplied by PSP Images.