As much as Stevens may be a one-off — the Benjamin Button of county cricket — his sustained success put the English cricket set-up in the spotlight.
In so many other sports, the defiance of Father Time is universally celebrated, be it Tom Brady’s standing at the top of the NFL world or the reverence for Roger Federer on the court.
It is slightly different for Stevens,and much of his reception is dependant on how exactly the beholder views county cricket.
“Marnus Labuschagne, I’m pretty sure he has more nightmares about facing Darren Stevens than he does Stuart Broad or James Anderson in Australia with the Kookaburra.
“That is the truth of the matter in our County Cricket game. County Cricket is great, it’s the best system in the world but we can help the England Test team by having a ball that doesn’t do quite as much and potentially manoeuvre the four-day game into the heart of the summer.”
While no one can question his talent, some see the county system as a key breeding ground to produce international cricketers.
Others view it as legitimate without a need to assess its value by what it means for Test cricket or the development of younger players.
That question — of what purpose county cricket has and who it seeks to serve — is at the heart of the debate on the role of the domestic set-up in England’s current Ashes agony.
Former England skipper Michael Vaughan sits in the former category, questioning whether the county cricket set-up needs a shake-up to produce better results on the international stage.
“He’s an absolute legend but surely that is a glaring error on our behalf that a 45-year-old is taking the new Duke ball,” Vaughan told Fox Cricket’s ‘The Follow-On’ podcast.
The questions over the county cricket structure are nothing new and yet still remain largely unaddressed according to Vaughan.
The County Championship has provided England with a host of options to open its batting at Test level — from Keaton Jennings and Mark Stoneman to Dominic Sibley and Zak Crawley.
Sibley though is a perfect example of the predicament England finds itself in right now.
He had 1,324 runs for Warwickshire in Division One and earned the call-up in 2019 but went on to fall for three ducks and five single-figure returns in his last 15 innings before being dropped.
Current openers Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed may be still struggling for consistency but if neither are the answer, who else could England actually turn to that it has not already?
The questions over the county cricket structure are nothing new and yet still remain largely unaddressed according to Vaughan.
The County Championship has provided England with a host of options to open its batting at Test level — from Keaton Jennings and Mark Stoneman to Dominic Sibley and Zak Crawley.
Sibley though is a perfect example of the predicament England finds itself in right now.
He had 1,324 runs for Warwickshire in Division One and earned the call-up in 2019 but went on to fall for three ducks and five single-figure returns in his last 15 innings before being dropped.
Current openers Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed may be still struggling for consistency but if neither are the answer, who else could England actually turn to that it has not already?
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