RYAN Sidebottom is hoping to continue his county career with Yorkshire for another three seasons.

Sidebottom, who is 37 tomorrow, would love to complete 20 years as a professional – which would take him through to the end of the 2017 season – having debuted for the white rose side in 1997.

The former England left-arm seam bowler starred in the LV= County Championship title-sealing victory over former county Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in September with 6-30 in the second innings.

Sidebottom will also begin next season with a couple more personal milestones on the horizon – 700 first-class wickets and 1,000 in all forms of professional cricket.

"I'm still enjoying the training and the games and I want to carry on playing for as long as possible," he said.

"In an ideal world, I would love to do 20 years in county cricket, I really would. To do that would be an unbelievable achievement. That would be another three years – to 2017.

"That would be nice but I can't realistically look that far ahead. I've just got to take one year at a time and see how the body is, how I'm bowling and how I'm contributing to the team.

"Being a senior player, I want to be helping the young lads as well as taking wickets. That's my job."

Sidebottom is only 37 wickets away from 700 first-class victims and 46 shy of 1,000 overall, although his biggest aim will no doubt be to add to his four Championship medals after two with Yorkshire and two with Notts.

He said: "You don't really look at milestones. If I do it, great, I'd be chuffed to bits. One thousand wickets professionally and 700 first-class would be a nice achievement. It would be better to do that in a winning team, though.

"I don't normally set myself any goals as a player – I never have done. I just try to be as consistent as possible.

"I must admit, I'd like to get 800 before I finish, putting myself up there with Darren Gough and people like that. But enjoying my cricket is most important. If I do that, the wickets and milestones will come naturally.

"To start well and contribute to the team is what we'll need if we're going to be missing a few players early on due to the international stuff."