JADE Dernbach says he is confident of living up to his billing as "the best bowler in the County Championship".

The Surrey seamer was voted the number one bowler by his peers in the latest issue of Wisden Cricketer Magazine.

The 25-year-old has returned to the county having had a busy winter playing for the England Lions in the West Indies and was even called into the senior team's World Cup squad as cover late on in the tournament.

He admits being flattered by the honour of his peers' vote.

He said: "My mum informed me of that the other day and she seemed pretty excited by it. I haven't had the chance to see it, because things have been a little bit crazy for the last few weeks as you can imagine, but I'm over the moon to hear that.

"Hopefully I can produce and not let down the guys who voted for me. It's always nice to get compliments from people from the outside, you know then that you're doing something right. But as long as I'm successful for Surrey the opinions of other people don't really matter too much."

And Dernbach is confident he is returning to Surrey a better bowler for the experience.

"I think it's consistency," he added. "I think a lot of people might have that question mark over me. But I don't see it that way and Surrey don't.

"It was just about stringing performances together, putting my name in the mix and seeing what happens from there.

"That's all you can do as a cricketer. I'm glad I did that and it's worked out pretty well for me."

Dernbach says Surrey cricket manager Chris Adams is right to be confident ahead of the new season, and backed the Lions to win promotion back to division one of the County Championship despite key players Mark Ramprakash both missing the first six weeks of the campaign.

"Obviously, they are two big losses to us," he added. "But as I say the guys who are stepping in have played enough cricket to do a very good job.

"We've got everything it takes to win it."