THE impressive recent form of Darren Stevens has caught the eye of our Kent CCC columnist BRAD PINARD.

IT has been a couple of weeks since my last blog and of course Kent have continued to be consistently inconsistent over that time.

Still bottom of the County Championship Division Two table after a few weather-affected draws, and still with a faint hope of qualifying for the next round of the YB40, it is fair to say it has been an unspectacular season so far.

However, in my opinion it has been an extremely positive few weeks for the Spitfires, with all-rounder Darren Stevens the main cause for my optimism.

‘Stevo’ may now be 37-years-old but he is playing arguably the cricket of his life, especially with the bat.

He has crushed an astonishing 343 runs in his last four innings to give Kent success in the one-day games, as well as keeping them in County Championship matches when they looked out of it.

Two centuries in his last two games, including 118 from 53 in a record breaking YB40 run chase against Sussex, has made the county circuit sit up and watch.

With a variation in his bowling too, Stevens has become on the most valuable players on the county circuit and it is great to see.

The news only gets better for the all-rounder as the Twenty20 competition gets underway this week and the Spitfires and Stevens have a superb record in the short format over the past four or five years.

T20 now will now dominate Kent’s fixture list as they play five games in the space of two weeks in the south group where they will expect to qualify.

While Stevens is playing so well, so is another Kent lad James Tredwell who is still with the England squad after their ICC Champions Trophy final defeat to India.

Tredwell has one more game with England before being released back to Kent in time to captain the side up the County Championship table and to qualification in the YB40 and FPT20.

The off spinner has kept Graeme Swann out of the England side in recent weeks and will hope to continue this impressive form when he returns to Canterbury.

With Stevens playing so well, and Tredwell coming back to the team, the next month or so could really be a successful time for Kent as their young squad shapes well and can still yet win some silverware this season.

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