Beyond the Boundary: Kent star Darren Stevens writes exclusively for the KM Group
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It was great to get the call from
Geoff Miller this week telling me I was in the England Lions squad
for the one-day tournament against India A and West Indies A next
week.
I thought things like this had passed
me by after being called up for the England A team when I was 25 or
26. I did all right but obviously not well enough to be selected
for further honours.
I have been playing well and now I
will have to see how things go and whether I can push myself into
the main squad.
I was out getting the papers on
Saturday morning when the phone rang and I think we spoke for about
20 minutes. He asked me about my desire to play for my country and
I told him I have had it since I started playing professional
cricket.
I have got a fitness screening at
Loughborough at 9am on Monday and the squad is due to meet a couple
of hours later.
At Kent, we can’t seem to get on a
roll at the moment. Everyone is training hard for games and even
when the coach gives us a day off and optional practice the next
day, we are all in, so it’s not a lack of heart or preparation.
Against Surrey the other night, it
rained when we had eight overs left and me and Azhar had just
started getting going.
The ball was sliding onto the bat
because it was a little wet and we were backing ourselves but
eventually the rain became too heavy.
Symo had earlier come in and carried
the game away from us but he had a bit of luck early on.
At first it didn’t look he knew what a
bat was, then he hit a couple of sixes and he was on his way.
At Beckenham on Sunday, I thought we
could have kept Somerset down to about 160. They didn’t get
off to a great start but we didn’t bowl well enough in the middle
of the innings.
I’m loving the challenge of opening
the bowling. Batters are going to come hard at me and openers go on
instinct. They like the ball coming onto the bat and I bowl early
to mid 70 miles an hour, there’s nothing there for them and
fortunately I’m hitting good areas, nibble it around, and make it
difficult.
Everyone would have gone home from
Beckenham on Sunday disappointed and frustrated. As a group of
players we were the same.
We played Surrey last night
(Wednesday), Middlesex tonight and then Sussex on Sunday.
I told you last week I was off to St
Omer in France to play in a pro-am golf event but in the end it
turned out disappointing.
We arrived, checked in at the hotel,
had a nice meal, saw the boys tee-off in the morning, then went to
register, only to find our names were missing from the list!
They organised for us to play at
another course about 40 minutes south but I didn’t play as well as
I could but I enjoyed it.
Speak again, next week.
Wednesday, June 23 2010
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