“1,000 wickets professionally and 700 first-class would be a nice achievement”

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Yorkshire left-arm pace bowler Ryan Sidebottom has announced that he is determined to play three more years before announcing his retirement.

Sidebottom, 37, will have played 20 county seasons if he manages to represent Yorkshire for three more years.

“I’m still enjoying the training and the games, and I want to carry on playing for as long as possible,” Sidebottom told the Northern Echo. “In an ideal world, I would love to do 20 years in county cricket, I really would. To do that, 20 years as a professional, it would be an unbelievable achievement. That would be another three years, to 2017.

“That would be nice, but I can’t realistically look that far ahead. I’ve just got to take one year at a time and see how the body is, how I’m bowling and how I’m contributing to the team.

“Being a senior player, I want to be helping the young lads as well as taking wickets. That’s my job.”

Sidebottom is also unconcerned about the fact that he is within touching distance of taking 700 first-class wickets and 1,000 wickets in all formats of the game.

“You don’t really look at milestones,” he said. “If I do it, great, I’d be chuffed to bits. 1,000 wickets professionally and 700 first-class would be a nice achievement. It would be better to do that in a winning team, though.

“I must admit, I’d like to get 800 before I finish, putting myself up there with Darren Gough and people like that. But enjoying my cricket is most important. If I do that, the wickets and milestones will come naturally.

“To start well and contribute to the team is what we’ll need if we’re going to be missing a few players early on due to the international stuff.”