Darren Stevens and budding England stars Adam Riley, Sam Billings and Daniel Bell-Drummond are among those to have extended their Kent contracts.

Nine members of the squad were revealed to have penned new deals on Tuesday afternoon, with Adam Ball, Alex Blake and young bowlers Charlie Hartley, Matt Hunn and Imran Qayyum signing on for the 2015 season.

In addition academy prospects Ryan Davies and Sam Weller have been promoted to the first-team squad for the first time, with minimal other changes expected to the 2014 playing staff.

The club’s cricket management group, which features Chairman of Cricket Graham Johnson, head coach Jimmy Adams, assistant coach Matt Walker, skipper Rob Key, Chief Executive Jamie Clifford and high performance director Simon Willis, made the decisions on new deals.

Mr Johnson said: “This year has shown the potential of the team emerging both at an individual and a team level.

“The exciting thing for the future is that there is so much more to come, both in terms of the higher levels each player can attain and the consistency of delivery.

“What we are doing is to grow this potential, based on players who have emerged from our home-grown system, together with others who have come from outside that system but who buy into what we are trying to do.

“That way it is sustainable and will reflect the way we do things at Kent. It is very encouraging to have all these players wanting to build on this year and commit to Kent.

“With them on board forming the core of our squad going forward and defining our future, Kent supporters should feel enthusiastic about what we can achieve.”