ANDY Bichel was Worcestershire's Player of the Year in 2001 - and who would bet against him picking up the award again this season?

The Australian pace ace has already made a major impact this term in both four-day and limited-over cricket.

He quickly signalled his intentions by registering career-best figures of 9-93 in the opening Frizzell County Championship Division Two match of the season against Gloucestershire at New Road.

It was a lethal performance which the 31-year-old described as 'unbelievable' and one which had County followers flicking through the record books.

Indeed, it was the best return by a Worcestershire bowler since paceman Neal Radford claimed 9-70 against Somerset at New Road in 1986.

Bichel was also a shining light in Worcestershire's highly successful Benson and Hedges Cup group campaign by stacking up 14 wickets at a cost of just 10.00 each.

His efforts against Somerset at Taunton earned him the Gold Award.

Bichel, who completed his nine wicket Championship haul just four days after jetting in from Australia, is now determined to build on his wicket-taking start to the campaign and scale the kind of heights he achieved for the County last year.

He said: "My main focus now that I have been back in the Australian side is to continue some good form while I'm here and hopefully get called up for the Super Challenge against Pakistan in June and then for the ICC Champions Trophy and Test matches later in the year.

"But my main goal is to take each game as it goes and enjoy what I'm doing and hopefully get promotion into the Australia side. This is a wonderful stepping stone to do that by playing cricket week in and week out.

"I didn't have a lot of cricket in Australia and I didn't play as much as I'd have liked. I had to be 12th man for the Test matches and be part of the squads, but you do need to be playing cricket just to keep that form up so you can perform.

"Being at Worcester is a great platform for me to do that and hopefully I can be part of the Australian plans later on. So that's really my main focus at this stage, taking each game as it comes for Worcestershire and enjoying the challenge.

"We have got a great squad of players here. There's no doubt we were probably a little bit underdone last year and that happens. We had a few injuries and it's nice to have that depth now.

"You need depth to go anywhere and we have had that with Queensland for a number of years. We managed to win the title last year, which is quite unbelievable, and I think that all came down to depth.

"We have had some good signings at Worcester and also some of the younger guys in our squad have really come on, so the depth is there.

"We should have no excuse. The only thing that can let us down is ourselves. Ben Smith has off to a good start, Graeme Hick is looking for another big season and Kabir Ali is back from injury so there are some good things happening in the club. Guys are jostling for spots in the team so that's a good thing too."

Bichel is eager to better his achievements of last year when he ended as Worcestershire's leading wicket-taker in the County Championship (66), Norwich Union League Division Two (27) and Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy (eight).

He was also joint top wicket-taker with fellow paceman Alamgir Sheriyar in the Benson and Hedges Cup with nine scalps.

He has comfortably passed that tally during this term's group matches and now has power to add when the County take on Gloucestershire in an eagerly-awaited quarter-final at the County Ground, Bristol, on Tuesday, May 21.

As well as being the County Supporters' Association's 2001 Player of the Year, his efforts also earned him two other awards - the Dick Lygon Award for his contribution on and off the field plus the inaugural Don Kenyon Award for the player judged to have produced the best match-winning performance in a first-class match.

He said: "I hope I can take more wickets than last season. I'd like to take as many as I can and it was certainly nice to get off to a start with nine."