When you come across as modest an individual as Ethan Bamber, it is almost invariably hard work to get him to praise himself.
His Warwickshire skipper Ed Barnard calls the Bears’ fast bowler “the nicest man in county cricket” – no small statement that, in a dressing room that also contains Chris Woakes, not to mention himself and a lot of other fine characters.
Even more importantly, Bamber is actually pretty good at his job as well. The leading Championship wicket-taker in the country, in fact.
His tally of 69 wickets in the Bears’ ninth County Championship triumph was the stand-out statistic in a real team effort.
Warwickshire claimed 41 out of a possible 42 bowling bonus points during the season – good cause for bowling coach Graeme Welch to be proud.
In the Bears’ five wins in six games since the Championship resumed in August, allied to a back-up crew of captain Barnard and 37-year-olds Woakes and Olly Hannon-Dalby, Bamber took a tremendous 32 wickets at an average of just 12.71, during which time he claimed three of his season’s four five-wicket hauls.
Privately, Bamber does actually feel he can get even better, that there are areas of his game he can still work on and improve.
But just how good is the Bears’ necessity? Should he be on England’s radar?
