Matt Lamb has enjoyed his first winter’s work with the bowling group at Warwickshire as he strives to hone his all-round skills to help push for a first-team place in all formats next season.

Batting is the primary string to Lamb’s bow and he acquitted himself well last season, scoring two half-centuries when given his first sustained run in the championship team.

I want to play first-team cricket in all formats and it can only help if I can make myself a serious option as a bowler. I think I did okay last season – it was great to get a quality player like James Hildreth for my first wicket. Now I have just got to keep improving.

Matt Lamb

But the 21-year-old also impressed with his medium-pace bowling, an area where the Bears’ first-team squad is not over-burdened with options. So this winter, alongside his batting, he has been hard at work with bowling coach Pop Welch at Edgbaston.

“I’ve been working very hard on my bowling,” Lamb said. “Pop’s a brilliant coach – hard but fair and he has a lot of good things to say. I’ve always worked on my bowling but this is the first winter that I have spent a lot of time with the bowlers and had the video analysis and everything.

“I want to play first-team cricket in all formats and it can only help if I can make myself a serious option as a bowler. I think I did okay last season – it was great to get a quality player like James Hildreth for my first wicket. Now I have just got to keep improving.”

Lamb played seven championship matches in 2017, scoring 329 runs at an average of 23.50. He invariably got starts in innings and looked at home in first-class cricket without so far going on to get a big score.

“Last season was good for me because I played a few games and didn’t feel out of place so I know I can do it now,” he said. “That will help me this season because I think for any young player when you first get pitched in there is that fear factor and you wonder whether you can do it. But I think I showed I can hold my own.

“Getting a 50 on my home debut was fantastic and I got plenty of starts so the challenge now is to go on and build on those starts and turn them into centuries.”

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