Ashwin calls Darren Stevens 'inspiration' after Kent extends his county contract by 1 year

Team India's ace off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who is currently in the United Kingdom to play the first-ever ICC World Test Championship (WTC) Final and five-match Test series against England has termed 45-year-old Kent all-rounder Darren Stevens as 'inspiration' Darren Stevens brought the attention of the cricketing world upon himself when he hit a scintillating 149-ball 190 on the second day of the County Championship game against Glamorgan. 

Not only this, 45-year-old Darren Stevens was the star of Day 2 action in their Group 3 match as he dismissed Australia's batting star and Wolrd No. 3 Test batsman Marnus Labuschagne for the 2nd time in the county season. Stevens trapped Marnus Labuschange LBW with one that nipped back in sharply. Notably, Darren Stevens is the oldest active player in county cricket since 1995. 

Ravichandran Ashwin lauds Darren Stevens on contract extension

Going by the reports of Daily Mail UK, Darren Stevens has been given the chance to play county cricket beyond his 46th birthday after Kent offered the all-rounder a new contract for 2022. Notably, the report suggests that the club have tended to wait until late in the season annually before discussing deal extensions and famously informed him two years ago that they would not be offering a renewal prior to a hasty, September U-turn. However, his dream outing against Glamorgan earned him the extension of his contract. 

Reacting to this, Team India's off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin took to his Twitter handle and called Darren Stevens inspiration outlining his great run in the English County Championship. Ashwin on his Twitter handle wrote:

Darren Stevens Stats

Making his debut for Leicestershire in 1997 at the age of 21, Darren Stevens has played 314 first-class games scoring 15940 runs at an average of 34.65 with 35 hundreds and 80 fifties besides bagging 564 wickets at an average of 24.54. Incidentally, he struck his career-best 237 off 225 balls only in 2019. In the List A format, he scored 7612 runs with 160 scalps to his name. While he has not represented England at the national level, he became a much sought-after T20 player in the last few years turning out for Dhaka Gladiators amongst other teams. So far, he has 4001 runs in his T20 career with an impressive strike rate of 136.41 while taking 114 wickets. 

(Image Credits: AP/@KentCricket/Twitter)