Kent all-rounder Darren Stevens is hoping last week’s win over Lancashire isn’t his last game as a professional cricketer.
The 37 year old starred with the bat, smashing an unbeaten 205 as Kent beat the Division Champions by two wickets in one of the most exciting days of County Championship cricket at Canterbury in many a year.
Set 418 to win and beginning the final day on 32 for 1, Kent set about their task and in the end it was Stevens’ innings, well supported along the way by the likes of Sam Northeast and Adam Ball that saw them home with around fifteen overs left in the day.
With the cloud of an ICC tribunal hanging over him, Stevens went into the game knowing full well it could be his last as a professional cricketer with the chance he could pick up a ban that would all but end his career.
Having potentially gone out in style, Stevens told KSN how he was pleased with how the game had gone, but hopes that’s not the end of his life in cricket:
“When you look at it and think it could all be over in three months and this could be the last game I ever play in first class cricket, fingers crossed it isn’t.”
“It could be and I’m very proud and honoured to have done what I’ve done at Kent and the way it’s finished this summer.”
“I’m a happy man at the minute, but fingers crossed it carries on.”
“As everybody knows, it’s been quite a tough year to be fair. Since it all kicked off on about the 8th of April, it’s been going on all summer and it’s been emotional. Cricket has been what’s kept me going.”
“Fingers crossed it doesn’t stop there, but there’s every chance in a way it could do.”
One of Stevens’ biggest regrets if it turns out to be his last game is that he never got the chance to play for England, despite knocking on the door for many years:
“I’m a little bit indifferent as I wish I’d learnt a bit more as a youngster, but you can only learn when you’re ready to learn.”
“Kicking on as I have done since I moved to Kent, I’m really pleased with my career to date and I’ll always look back at it and had always wanted to play for my country.”
“It’s ever schoolboy’s dream to play for his country and unfortunately I never got that. I had an opportunity a few years back playing for the Lions in a One Day series.”
“I had averaged eighty plus and thought I might have had a chance in some One Day stuff, but it never came. It’s one of those things, I wish it did.”
Friday’s unbeaten double century is the third time Stevens has passed 200 in a Kent shirt and he talked us through the innings of a lifetime:
“Where do you start? I suppose I had a bit of luck early doors with an lbw shout. Every four I hit after that, Tom Smith kept coming up to me saying I should have been out.”
“It was a strange day as I think when I went in to bat we needed about 270 and in the back of my mind I kept saying to myself if we can be needing 140 in the last session, there’s every chance we could win the game.”
“I was always working on runs required and we just kept ticking them off. When the scoreboard went out, my mind was shot a bit and I said to Adam Ball to keep the board ticking over and he hit boundary after boundary.”
“To be fair, I didn’t think I’d get it as when I looked at the board I was on about 170 and we only needed just over thirty to win.”
“Keysey came in and said he didn’t want to face any balls and could I win the game please.”
“In the four day stuff, this was my best knock because of the context of the game. The game against Sussex in the YB40 was probably my best ever knock with what was going on at the time.”
“It was good for us to get over the line at home for the first time this summer as it was 1872 that we didn’t have a win at home.”
The game also saw Stevens pass 200 first class wickets and the all-rounder explained how the move from Leicestershire gave him a new lease of life:
“When I was at Leicester I was only a batter that loved to bowl. I never got the chance to bowl and when I came down here I was given the opprtunity to bowl by Dave Fulton and I’ve picked up my wickets along the way.”
One of the strangest quirks of fate was that great friend Rob Key was at the wicket when Stevens won the game on Friday with the boundary.
Key hadn’t been expected to bat in the second innings after breaking his left thumb, but was required to bat at number ten with 29 still required.
He contributed just three with the bat, but Stevens joked that the former skipper would try and make sure everyone remembers his heroics in years to come:
“Keysey was saying in the dressing room afterwards, everyone is going to remember this. He was saying that everyone would remember Rob Key coming out to bat at ten with a broken thumb!”
“It won’t be about Stevo with his 205 not out, it will be all about Rob Key and his broken thumb eight down.”
“Somebody brought up that Colin Cowdrey did it once with a broken arm and no one remembers the guy that his 150 plus.”
One of the highlights of Stevens’ innings was smashing possibly one of his best ever sixes and the all-rounder talked us through it:
“I don’t really hit too many over third man and I knew it was going to be a short ball. Keysey gives me stick that I don’t play the pull very often.”
“The short boundary was that side and the wind was going that way. I knew if I got a bit of bat on it, it would go and in the end I got a lot of bat on it and it went over the top of the Cowdrey Stand.”
That shot sums up the way Stevens plays the game and fans of Kent and the game in general will be short changed if that is the end of his career.
Cricket is a game enjoyed by all and should Stevens be forced to end his career early, the game will have been robbed of one of its’ greatest assets.
There’s not too many box office players left in the game and Stevens can almost be described as a maverick in the way he plays.
If this is to be it and we have seen Stevens take to the field for the last time, we can rightly say we’ve seen one of the greatest players to have pulled on a Kent shirt.
Stevens is expected to sweep the board at the club’s Player of the Year awards on Friday night.
Pictures supplied by www.sarahansellphotography.com