Jake Lintott has made 63 T20 appearances for the Bears – but only three in the County Championship
Warwickshire's Jake Lintott is not your average county cricketer.
Count up the number of left-arm wrist spinners in the game who did not make their first-class debut until they were 28 – and the former schoolteacher from Somerset is the only name on that list.
Add in the fact that, in his first full season in the county game, he ended up with a winner's medal in the inaugural Mens Hundred for Southern Brave, after they beat Birmingham Phoenix in the Lord's final, just adds to the bizarreness of his cricketing journey.
But an unexpectedly quiet winter on the franchise front has given Lintott the chance to refocus his ambitions for this coming season – and his aim is to play more County Championship cricket.
"You don't see many wrist spinners playing four-day cricket," he told BBC Sport. "I haven't had the opportunities I'd have liked.
"Warwickshire fans have probably only seen me play T20 but there is a burning desire to play more red ball and I've done a lot of work on that this winter – both batting and bowling – to enable me to bang on the door a bit more."
Bamber and Lintott lead Bears' first Pakistan trip
Jake Lintott (front, middle) and winter signing Ethan Bamber (back, third from right) helped warm up for the 2025 season by captaining a young Bears side on a pre-season trip to Pakistan in February
After being plucked from his teaching job in Taunton to have a second go at making it as a professional cricketer in 2021, Lintott has so far made only three Championship appearances in four years on the Warwickshire staff.
He is still waiting to add to his career total of 93 T20/Hundred appearances, having not played a competitive match since the Bears' home quarter-final loss to eventual winners Gloucestershire last September.
"Part of being a wrist spinner is that at times it doesn't how go how you want," he said.
"And I bounced back well in the Blast last summer after a poor year in 2023.
"Opportunities dried up in The Hundred for some reason but I feel I've still got something. Drafts are a funny thing. They don't always work out. And I feel a little bit hard done by.
"It's something I'd like to get back doing as not getting to play much in The Hundred has led to me not getting so many opportunities worldwide. Normally I've been away for four or five months in the winter."
Millie Taylor and Jake Lintott have both been making full use this winter of Edgbaston's Indoor School
On the plus side, Lintott's enforced time off the field at Edgbaston has also helped him branch out into a temporary return to coaching.
He has been working with fellow left-arm 'wristie' Millie Taylor, who will be part of new women's first-team coach Alistair Maiden's newly-created Warwickshire side, ahead of their debut season in the new professional structure.
"I asked Ali Maiden if there were any opportunities to come in and coach on a voluntary basis, as it something I wanted to get onto my CV – and it just happened that the club had signed at the club signed a left-arm wrist spinner from Sussex and I've been working with Millie," Lintott said.
"It has been really nice seeing her grow throughout that time as she puts more trust in me. And I've been on her journey. I know what it's like when you first start.
"I was lucky that a post came up at my old school, Queen's College, Taunton, just at about the time when I was starting to think about a career outside cricket about the age of 23 when it wasn't really working out.
"I worked there for three years during which time they still gave me the flexibility to have trials with other counties and eventually it paid off.
"But it's really rewarding coaching. I first felt it when I was coaching at the school and when you see someone score a 100 and you feel you've helped achieve that and they come to you and thank you, that's a special feeling."
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Warwickshire will start the 2025 season in two weeks still very much in 'rebuild' mode following a winter of big changes at Edgbaston.
The Bears underachieved in 2024 finishing seventh in the County Championship, managing just one win in 14 games, below Midlands neighbours Worcestershire.
They also flopped in the knock-out stage in the T20 Blast, losing at the quarter-final stage for the fourth year running, once again on home soil.
That led to an internal review, following which head coach Mark Robinson left by mutual consent and replaced by former Bears opener Ian Westwood.
That followed Gavin Larsen's decision to quit as performance director in late November to return to his native New Zealand.
His replacement, James Thomas from Manchester City, does not start until June, while Matt Walker takes over as batting coach from Tony Frost, who becomes head of cricket operations to fill the enormous gap left when the long-serving Keith Cook retires after more than 50 years with the club.
Aside from that, they lost former skipper Will Rhodes to Durham, in the wake of his removal from the captaincy, while wicketkeeper Michael Burgess retired from the game at just 30 and his potential replacement Chris Benjamin signed for Kent, meaning that captain Alex Davies will take the gloves.
But they have brought in New Zealand Test captain Tom Latham as their main overseas signing, along with Sri Lanka's Vishwa Fernando to start the season, as well as Middlesex paceman Ethan Bamber.
Warwickshire start the new County Championship season at home against newly-promoted Sussex on Friday, 4 April.
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Jake Lintott: The 'left-arm wristie' who'd love to play red-ball cricket – BBC.com
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