DARYL Mitchell is proud to be following in the footsteps of a long line of successful Worcestershire opening batsmen.

The 33-year-old used to watch Tim Curtis, the club’s current vice-chairman, during the glory years of the late 1980s and early 1990s as a youngster.

He is also well aware of the impact made by the likes of New Zealand star Glenn Turner and Alan Ormrod in the County’s history.

This summer Mitchell scored seven centuries in 14 Championship matches and was voted the club’s players' player of the year.

He sad: “Am I conscious of following a long line of successful openers? I’ve probably come to notice it more this year because I’ve ticked off a few milestones.

“I’ve been sent various emails of lists of leading run-scorers and century-makers for the club and things like that.

“To go past some of the names that are on there is fantastic and being a Worcestershire lad and following the County I know all about the history and the great players we’ve had here.

“To be spoken in the same breath as some of them is great and makes me feel pretty good.”

Mitchell used to watch the prolific Curtis and now the roles are reversed with the latter often viewing the current County opener’s time in the middle.

He said: “I watched TC in his prime. I started coming down here in the late 1980s with my dad and I saw a lot of TC, Hicky (Graeme Hick) and Bumpy (Steve Rhodes).

“I know all about that era and how much success they had and obviously there was some great players here at that time and before.”

Mitchell averaged 55.04 this summer to take his career average in first-class cricket back above the 40 mark.

He added: “Since I started I’ve always set 40 as where I want to be each and every year, 40 and above. This year I was considerably above that which was nice.

“But to get the career average above 40 is quite important to me and to be considered a good batter, a top first-class cricketer, you need to be averaging over 40, particularly over a long period.”

Mitchell’s seven first-class centuries were the highest number in a season by a County batsman for 21 years since Tom Moody during the 1996 campaign.

The list of most tons in a season is dominated by Turner and Hick.

Mitchell moved past 11,000 first-class runs for the County during the latter part of his prolific season.

His overall first-class tally now stands at 11,550 at an average of 40.66.