Hampshire captain Jimmy Adams hopes to match limited-overs success with a sustained promotion push in the LV= County Championship this season.
The south-coast county have enjoyed rich success in the shorter formats in recent years, only for their four-day form to apparently suffer.
Hampshire have reached the past four Twenty20 finals days, winning the title twice, while they won the Clydesdale Bank 40 in 2012.
It is a run of form that has come at the same time as they suffered championship relegation, in 2011, and have so far been unable to reclaim their place at the top table. Hampshire, second in Division Two, continue their quest for promotion at home to Glamorgan from tomorrow.
It is a situation that has frustrated Adams, who took over as captain when Hampshire slipped down a division, but he denies the shorter formats have been a greater priority.
“The success over the last five years in the one-day stuff has led people to think we tend to put more into that pot but certainly it isn’t really the case,” he told ecb.co.uk.
“If you have success in certain competitions it breeds confidence and success can follow.
“It’s not for the lack of want or aiming for it over four days it just hasn’t quite worked out that way.
“Certainly we’d be disappointed if we weren’t in with a chance of achieving (promotion) come the last four or five weeks of the year.
“There is a long way to go yet. I think we’ve already shown that we can play well enough to push any side and probably every team is thinking similar in some ways.
“It comes downs to the consistency. It’s a bit of a cliché, but it is a marathon and not a sprint. If we are there in August for the final push then hopefully we’ll be in a good place to do that. It’s tough but that is our aim.”
The 33-year-old recently passed 10,000 runs for his home county and, while he admits promotion is high on the agenda, he does not want to sacrifice their short-format success in the process.
Finding a balancing act in all three formats is no easy task – no county has yet consistently found the recipe for such success – but after a solid start to the season Adams is hopeful Hampshire have the squad to match all-round ambitions.
“The tricky thing is we want to maintain those one-day stats,” he added.
“We want to compete in those formats as we have for the past four or five years,
“If you want to go well on three fronts then I suppose then you are asking a fair bit of your squad.
“I think we’ve got a squad that can cope with that. Hopefully we can get a start in all (competitions) and continue it.
“That’s often the case. If you start well then it’s much easier to maintain it.
“Maybe the change in format this year will help us with that with the Twenty20 and the four-day fixtures interlinked while the 50-over games are in their own little patch. Only time will tell.”
It is a milestone the left-hander, who was born in Winchester, admitted he never imagined he would get near after struggling in second-team ranks at the start of his career.
Adams was told he might be better served concentrating on books rather than bouncers, but has since emphatically proved he made the right choice to pursue his cricket career.
“I’ve joked with a few boys about it and Tommo (James Tomlinson) has given me some stick,” he said.
“I was genuinely at the point where the second year of second-team cricket at Hampshire, I must have averaged about 13, and I got quietly told to potter off to university.
“So I genuinely didn’t even think I’d get to 1,000 runs.
“The way it has panned out is a testament to the patience some people at Hampshire have shown to me but also that I’ve managed to play for a bit longer than I thought I would.
“On that personal milestone I take immense pride.
“On a team front there is so long way to go in the season, but so far the boys have done well. Hopefully we can have some success at the end of the year.”