KYLE Abbott admits that winning the Specsavers County Championship is one of his main goals with Hampshire.

Having signed a four-year deal with Hampshire, the former South Africa opening bowler is determined to help the county to their first Championship title since 1973.

“The sky’s the limit, but I’d love to win division one and from the talk around the dressing room, that’s the general feeling among the guys,” said Abbott, as he prepared for the start of a two-day friendly against Sussex at Hove, which started today.

“It’s going to be very difficult to win every competition, we’ll give it a good crack but I would personally like to win division one in the next couple of years.”

Abbott, who took 36 Championship wickets at 20.33 apiece for Hampshire in 2014, is still only 29 but sacrificed his international career to commit himself to the county as a non-overseas, Kolpak player in January.

“This place has been close to my heart since I first came over so making a long-term commitment was pretty easy,” he said.

“ Everyone welcomed me and I felt very comfortable here from ball one. Knowing the guys and Rod [Bransgrove] and Giles [White] made it quite easy.

“I’ve kept in contact with a lot of them.”

Abbott’s first Hampshire spell ended two months before promotion - and the second division title - was clinched at Cardiff on the final day of the season.

He believes the squad is even stronger now.

“Everyone has grown up!” he said. “Vincey was 23 at the time but is now 26 and has played Test cricket.

“A lot of the faces are still here but they’re more experienced. So am I. I think I’d had one year of international cricket when I came over here last and I’ve tripled that.”

Abbott, who took 5-67 on his Hampshire debut at Gloucestershire three years ago, has played nine of his 11 Tests and 26 of his 28 one-day internationals since his first spell.

He continued: “I understand bowling a bit better and hopefully my experience of international cricket rubs off.

“But I’m not the finished article - especially with this Duke ball! It took me 16 overs to even remember what I did three years ago.

"I laughed about it because I was getting so frustrated by the 15th over. It clicked after I gave the angle of my run-up a slight tweak.

“No matter how much cricket you play around the world, there’s still room to learn.”