All-rounder Darren Stevens is keen to resolve his future as soon as possible and wants that future to be with Kent Cricket.

The 36 year old former Leicstershire star has enjoyed seven great years at Kent, but like some others will be out of contract at the end of the season.

His performances have seen him close to England One Day selection on a number of occassions, but for Stevens he is keen just to resolve his future with the club:

“I’m still waiting for the club to come back to me. We’ve sat down and had a chat and I’ve made things clear on what I’d like, so I’m just waiting on the club to come back to me.”

“I’ve done well, but England look like they’ve got a group of lads they’re happy with and they’re all performing, so I’m happy playing cricket for Kent. If that ever came around it would be great, but I’m a Kent lad at the minute and I’ll stick with playing for Kent.”

Kent have suffered with rain affected games all season and the latest, the Twenty 20 fixture against the Sussex Sharks on Tuesday night was abandoned without a ball being bowled after heavy rain forced a switch first of all from Tunbridge Wells and then made the pitch at Canterbury unplayable.

That left the players kicking their heels once again, but Stevens accepted that was part and parcel of being a county cricketer:

“It was a terrible week. We can’t do anything about the rain, but it’s been disappointing not to have played against Sussex as we’ve been there or therabouts in the Twenty 20 over the years.”

“In most of our Championship games, they’ve been rain affected, but hopefully it won’t cost us come the end of the season.”

“The pitch here at Canterbury was like mud, slushy mud. I don’t know quite what happened and the covers must have leaked somewhere along the line and there was stretch of about five to ten metres of slush, so there was no way we could have played on it.”

Stevens was keen to praise the groundstaff though and went on to explain how playing at Tunbridge Wells would have been impossible given the face three inches of rain had fallen there in just twelve hours:

“I saw Donna, one of the catering girls and she’d just got back from Tunbridge Wells and showed me the photos. I’d never seen anything like it. A few years ago we had water half way up the boundary boards at the bottom end at Canterbury, but it was like that all over at Tunbridge Wells.”

Kent now switch their attention to their next fixture, a Twenty 20 game against Surrey at Beckenham on Sunday and Stevens is keen to get their campaign going with a win:

“I think the standard will be good and hopefully we can get underway on Sunday against Surrey. The forecast hasn’t looked great, but hopefully we’ll get a full game as there’s always good crowds at Beckenham.”

Picture by Sarah Ansell. To see more of Sarah’s pictures, visit www.sarahcanterbury.com