BREAKTHROUGH talent Sam Cook is targeting another successful season following a memorable end to the last campaign.

Seam bowler Cook burst into the side in the final month of last season, taking the new-ball with Jamie Porter and claiming 18 wickets at 15.89 each in four County Championship matches as Essex sealed the title for the first time in 25 years.

But within days of the trophy presentation after the three-day demolition of Yorkshire – in which Cook posted the second five-wicket haul of his career – the 20-year-old was back behind his desk at Loughborough University, embarking on the final year of a degree course in history and international relations.

“It is still the time I look back on and have to pinch myself – did it really happen?,” he said. “Just thinking about that final day against Yorkshire still gives me goosebumps.

"Looking around a packed-out Chelmsford, I’ll never forget seeing all the smiling faces and how much it meant to everyone, not just the players and staff, but the fans as well.

“The squad’s a family unit. I’ve been around the team for quite a while, being in the squad and doing 12th man up to that point, so I felt part of it. You never feel like an outsider in this dressing room.”

Cook had his first outdoor session at The Cloudfm County Ground last week and is excited at what Essex have to offer this season, with just three weeks to go until the start of the season.

And he says he feels good.

“It came out nicely,” he reports. “I’ve had a few little things I’ve tried to work on and I’ve definitely felt the benefits indoors. This is the time of the year when you’re putting what you’ve practised over the winter into effect outside, and you get more of a gauge whether it has helped or not.

“We’re driven, and even more now because we’ve got the belief. We can do it and we want to replicate it this year.”