SOMERSET captain Marcus Trescothick says his side must improve on last season’s showing when the new first-class season begins next week.

Somerset take on Leeds/Bradford MCCU on Monday (April 7), before their County Championship campaign gets underway against Yorkshire at Taunton, on April 13.

Speaking at the club’s annual Press Day on Monday (March 31), Trescothick emphasised the need for his side to ‘up their game’ and bounce back after disappointing 2013 season.

He said: “I think we’ve got a lot to build on from last season; it wasn’t our greatest time last year and I think we’ve got to go in and try and improve on what we’ve done.

“We haven’t necessarily set any targets on winning this, that and whatever, but we’ve just got to improve, got to do better than what we did – we underachieved on what we set our sights on last season, it’s as simple as that.

“We’ve got to up our game and get our skills better than they were.

That’s going to be our challenge from day one, really.”

Trescothick has been in impressive form in Somerset’s two friendly fixtures against Middlesex and Worcester, scoring a century and a half-century in three innings – and the left-hander is hoping to carry this form into the new season.

He said: “It’s been a nice start.

Obviously I didn’t spend the time in Pretoria with the lads when they went away, but we had great practice back here and it’s just been nice to transfer it to out there.

“The pitches we have played on have been brilliant and we’ve had valuable time out in the middle.”