Onions: Lancs squad’s best I’ve ever known

Three-time County Championship winner Graham Onions believes the Lancashire squad he has joined is the best he has known.

Ex-England seamer Onions, 35, ended a long association with Durham last year, shortly after becoming their all-time leading first-class wicket-taker, and signed a two-year deal with Division One runnersup Lancashire.

He has been joined at Old Trafford by opening batsman Keaton Jennings, another ex-Durham player with Test honours for England, to boost a group already boasting Jos Buttler, Liam Livingstone and Haseeb Hameed.

Onions won the County Championship in 2008, 2009 and 2013 and thinks this current Red Rose squad has greater depth than any of those units did.

“The strength in this squad is by far the best I’ve played with, for the volume of players,” he explained ahead of Lancashire’s season-opening clash with Notts tomorrow.

“Durham, when they won the Championship for a couple of years, had 11 players that were unbelievable. Here, it’s 24.

“There’s a lot of players who will be disappointed if they’re not playing on Friday.

“Individually, we’ve done a lot of good things, which is great. But we need to knit it together as a team and go out there on Friday and perform well.

“Individual performances will help, but they won’t win trophies. You need to be there as a team.”

Onions’ deal with Lancashire includes an arrangement for him to be involved in the coaching set-up too, which he conceded helped sway him in accepting their contract over Durham’s offer.

Yet, there is still a fire burning inside the bowler to achieve more as a player before he calls it a day.

“I’m 35 years old so I’m coming towards the end,” Onions admitted. “But one of my goals is that I want to win a trophy, ideally a championship, over the next couple of years. “Then I can retire happy. “It’s great to win trophies, and when you finish your career you probably look back and think, ‘This is what I’ve actually done’.

“I’m very stubborn, and I want to prove myself against the best all the time. For me, not playing international cricket (any more), that’s first division cricket.

“I still feel I’m good enough to do that.”