Charlie Morris has admitted his spell of university cricket with Oxford MCCU stood him in good stead for the challenges of the LV = County Championship with Worcestershire last season.
The New Road paceman had a debut campaign to remember and finished with 52 Championship wickets after playing in all 16 games and bowling nearly 500 overs on the way to promotion.
But Morris had already showed signs of his potential against first class opposition for his university.
In April he dismissed England one-day player Samit Patel twice during the match with Nottinghamshire before linking up with Worcestershire.
Morris, who was voted Worcestershire's Players' Player and Young Player of the Year, said: "I was really lucky to have had the opportunity to play some first class cricket at Oxford MCCU.
"That really set me up nicely for this year in terms of I knew what the standard of first class cricket is like.
"I had managed to play in a total of six games before the start of last season for Oxford and you can build a lot of confidence from that in doing well in those games.
"It proves that you have kind of been at that level and you've proved yourself and it gives you confidence which is the key.
"It meant coming in and making my Championship debut didn't seem like quite such a big step up because I had played first class games already."
