Chopra sticks with Warwickshire

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At the start of the 2011 season Varun Chopra became Warwickshire's first player to score a double hundred in back-to-back encounters

Opening batsman Varun Chopra has committed his future to Warwickshire by signing a new contract until the end of the 2014 season.

The 24-year-old right-hander, who began his career at Essex but moved to Edgbaston two winters ago, firmly established himself at the top of the order in Warwickshire’s opening two matches this season by becoming their first player to score back-to-back double hundreds.

That put Chopra on course for 1,178 LV= County Championship runs in 2011 as Warwickshire agonisingly missed out on the Division One title on the final day of the competition.

Chopra, who also scored 448 runs in the Clydesdale Bank 40 and 203 in the Friends Life t20, said: “Warwickshire is a great club with a squad that can challenge for honours in all three competitions. I love playing my cricket here at Edgbaston, so to be able to add a further two years to my contract is fantastic.

“It was good to score more than 1,000 runs last season, but I want to be doing this consistently. As a squad we've been working hard in the gym over the last three weeks, but also in the nets to ensure that we're in the best possible shape.”

Part of the Potential England Performance Programme squad going to Sri Lanka in the New Year, Chopra will train at the National Cricket Performance Centre in Loughborough next week before departing for Colombo on December 9 to play club cricket until early January when the three-week PEPP begins.

"Being selected as part of the PEPP tour of Sri Lanka is a good opportunity and I’m looking forward to joining up with the squad in Loughborough next week,” he continued.

“I played in Sri Lanka as part of the Under-19s World Cup and the conditions are certainly very different to what we face regularly in England. But getting more experience of playing in unfamiliar surroundings, on the turning pitches and in the extreme heat will make us all better players.

"Hopefully I can make a great impression on the tour, then return to the Bears and help get our season off to the best possible start."

Ashley Giles, Warwickshire’s director of cricket, said: “Varun’s 1,200 runs in first-class cricket last season were instrumental to our push for the County Championship and his place on the PEPP was well-deserved.

“Securing a player of his calibre until at least the end of 2014 is a great boost to the squad as we look to build on last season.”

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