In the third part of our end of season review, we chat to David Capel to find out who played the biggest part in 2009, team spirit and the future…

Who had the biggest impact for Northants this season?

One star of this season is Nicky Boje. His leadership of the team, we very pleased with the way the team spirit has been this season, it's helped the lads not only to compete but to win. They've made some significant strides forward as a team. I've enjoyed working with Nicky, and I think he's done a fine job as captain. I'm looking forward to him coming back next season to do the same job.

David Lucas performed his role superbly as our left arm seamer. He has shown at the end of the season, not only with Championship wickets, that he could be a very important player for us in the future in one day cricket as well. I'm looking forward to seeing more of that. To get 60 wickets is brilliant.

Johan van der Wath came back from a knee injury and performing as he did, in a very rigorous back end of the season was amazing. In Twenty20 cricket he was superb, in Championship cricket he was superb and in Pro40, he played his role. As much cricket as he played in a short space of time and coming back from injury at the same time, I feel he put in a super performance for us this season.

Andrew Hall was immense, in every way, in every competition. He was the sort of heart of the team, performing batting wise. There were times when we would be struggling in Championship batting, and he would put in major performances. To come in at six or seven in the order and hold it together as he did, he scored a couple of hundreds, averaged 50 and hit nearly 1200 runs. He collected a fair share of catches from first slip alongside taking 40 wickets. He took responsibility for bowling a lot of the stock overs, and helped maintain and even build pressure back on the batsmen. His role as a bowler was very important. But what can you say about his one day performances? Andrew took the responsibility of going in to bat at three in the order, in the Pro40 and cracks a hundred, and a couple of other good scores. He comes in at a key time in Twenty20's and is capable of winning a match with the bat or with the ball bowling in a Twenty20 match. He was sensational, particularly bowling at the death, especially when you put him in tandem with Johan. He just had a superb season. I hope and know he will come back next season enjoying his cricket as much as he did this season.

I was especially pleased with Stephen Peters. To have as many senior batsmen missing as we did in the batting line-up, in Niall, David Sales, at times Riki Wessels, who was hospitalised for two weeks! At times we had a very inexperienced batting line up, and he was the one senior player left in there. Now for Stephen to raise his game and to perform when the team really needed it, especially with a depleted line up, is exceptional. He did all of that and made his centuries when we really needed them. 1050 runs opening the batting is good, he did that with three games to spare and missed two because of a broken thumb, perhaps he didn't get the runs he maybe would have liked to in the last three games, but everyone was back then, and his whole season before that was exceptionally fine.

Looking back to 2008, after losing the Twenty20 quarter-final to Essex, Northants managed to win just once in 18 matches. 2009 saw Northants win seven matches and lose only five times in 16 matches. What has made the difference this season?

This is where we have made some significant strides forward. The spirit of the team is such that when any adversity came along, it didn't take a game or two games to get moving again. The very next day/match, the 'bouncebackability' factor of this team was tremendous this year. Any little thing that didn't go right, even if it was a major thing, they just bounced back, bigger and strong the next day and put in an even better performance. That shows me a lot about the team, the spirit in the team and how people win together and work for each other. That was the thing that I gained most satisfaction from in witnessing this year. It's something I've been looking for, to develop. For me it was great to see.

Sum the season up in a sentence?

It's been a season of excitement. I think I'm right in saying, where people were not talking about cricket in the streets of Northampton before this season, they were doing so now, right the way through from the start of the Twenty20, because of the excitement, the entertainment that was going on down here at the County Ground. Coupled with the Ashes series, everyone seemed to be looking at what was happening with the cricket. That's what we did with our cricket this year. We are regaining the interest of the people, making people excited and getting people talking cricket.

Looking to the future, what's your policy? Do you want to bring even more youngsters through and can we expect more signings?

Throughout the season, it's been forced a little bit by injury, but we did have plans to play youngsters in amongst the experienced players and I think they gained valuable experience along the way; one or two performances have come from it. Not always as consistent as you might have liked but the experience gained by our younger cricketers will be invaluable in seasons to come.

I was pleased with that blend. What we need to look at now is progressing. We have taken strides forward. I still envisage younger players being involved with the first team, and the policy won't change, it's the way it should always be. However what we have to look at is to reinforce our batting at the top of the order. For that reason, we have signed Mal Loye. I'm looking forward to mal coming back into the team. I'll hope, expect and trust that David Sales will be fit and raring to go. If we think about those two top quality players coming into the line-up to compliment the talent of this season, like young Riki Wessels, young Alex Wakely, young David Willey. We start to look at having a very good team in all forms of the game. I think with that blend of experience and youth, we can maintain that high standard of fielding that we produced all season. By and large the standard of fielding was of a very good quality. We need that experience to help bolster the top order and help gain a few more bonus points. We need the seam bowling to keep the same exceptional standard. We have bowled teams out regularly this seasonand there have been many seasons in the past where we haven't done that.

So no more signings?

I'm not envisaging many new signings.