HE might be about to embark on his benefit year, but Durham seamer Graham Onions is adamant his best days are not behind him despite the need for a second bout of back surgery.

Onions’ benefit was confirmed yesterday, with the Gateshead-born fast bowler looking forward to his tenth season as a professional at Durham Emirates ICG after making his first-class debut in April 2004.

The 32-year-old has helped Durham win three county titles, a Friends Provident Trophy and the Royal London Cup as well as winning nine Test caps and making a major contribution to England’s Ashes win in 2009, but his career was briefly curtailed by a serious back problem that sidelined him for more than a year.

His latest back complaint is not as severe, but having failed to feature in the final two-and-a-half months of the County Championship season, he will undergo surgery on Monday to prevent one of the bones in his back causing damage to a nerve.

His recovery period will stretch into the New Year, but he should be fit for the start of next season and is confident he still has plenty to offer despite his advancing years.

“I’ve still got a couple of years left on my contract and I’m desperate to fulfil those,” said Onions, whose 459 first-class wickets at an average of just over 26 make him one of the most prolific English bowlers over the course of the last decade. “For me, that’s what it’s all about. I want to carry on playing for as long as I can, and hopefully finish my career playing for a club that’s very close to my heart.

“I’ve got my second back operation next Monday, and that’s going to be another big thing for me, although it’s not as big a deal as the first one where I had a pin put in the left-hand side of my back.

“I trained as hard as I could after that, got back to where I wanted to be, and played for England again. I have to believe I can do that again because once you lose that desire and burning ambition, you’re finished. Whether it’s coming back to play for England or Durham, you have to have ambitions to keep driving you forward.

“I would maybe walk away if I didn’t think I had anything to offer or didn’t have that drive inside me. I certainly believe that I’ve got enough on and off the field to keep on performing.”

A desire to ensure his benefit year does not mark the winding down of his career is another incentive for Onions to devote himself to his recuperation, and having watched the likes of Paul Collingwood and Steve Harmison receive similar recognition in previous seasons, the former Gateshead Fell junior is proud to be the latest North-Easterner to be honoured by his home county.

“I’ve been a part of other people’s benefits and always thought, ‘I would love to have one of those one year’,” said Onions. “Don’t get me wrong, it makes you think you’re old and getting towards the end of your career, but in my case I don’t really see it that way.

“It’s a huge honour and something I’m really proud of. It’s great to be rewarded for the hard work I’ve put in, some of the performances I’ve produced, and the effort I’ve put in to try to help win trophies. Equally, it’s also a way for me to say thanks to the members and the club for giving me an amazing opportunity.”

The one disappointment in Onions’ career to date is that he has been unable to make as many England appearances as his talent justifies.

His international career peaked with the successful 2009 Ashes series, and more specifically with the two wickets in two balls that marked the start of day two of the third Test at Edgbaston, and while his subsequent back problems forced him out of the England picture, he returned to win his ninth Test cap against the West Indies in June 2012.

Since then, however, he has been consistently overlooked despite dominating the domestic bowling charts – he was the leading wicket-taker in the country as Durham won their third county title in 2013 – with his omission from the 2013-14 Ashes series in Australia especially baffling. That those selected ahead of him proved so utterly ineffective merely accentuated the England camp’s error of judgement.

“I feel as though I’ve got the best out of my ability and, over a certain period of time, I’ve been one of the best bowlers around,” he said. “Unfortunately the selectors and the (England) coach have taken that away from me a little bit in terms of the number of caps they’ve given me. There’s absolutely nothing I can do about that.

“That’s bitterly disappointing because I probably deserved to be played a little bit more because my stats were good, but equally the captain and coach pick their team and I’ve just got to take it on the chin. Maybe when my career’s finished I might say, ‘I can’t believe they didn’t pick me’, but now I’ve just got to keep on going and keep believing I’m good enough to potentially play again.

“Everyone says they can’t believe I didn’t get picked for the Ashes, but from my point of view it’s just I didn’t fit their criteria. It’s the same as if you go for a job interview – you might have everything there but they could be looking for something else. You’ve just got to move on.

“When it first came out I couldn’t believe it had actually happened, but that’s just the way it is. They wanted the big, tall fast lads, but it didn’t work for them.”

* Graham Onions’ benefit year will help raise funds for four North-East charities – the Special Care Baby Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, the PCA Benevolent Fund and Steve Cram’s COCO (Comrades of Children Overseas) charity. For further information, visit www.grahamonionsbenefityear.co.uk or follow @BunnysBenefit on Twitter.