Ashley Giles insists he still has plenty of unfinished business at Warwickshire even though his reign at the club, now heading towards its fifth year, is already the longest in recent times for a director of cricket.

Giles’ record since September 2007, when he succeeded Mark Greatbatch, is mostly impressive.

He took the Bears straight back up to Division One of the championship and has kept them there, albeit not without a few scares, before this year moulding them into surprise contenders for the title.

Success in Twenty20 has proved more elusive. Although, until this year’s poor campaign, Warwickshire had been one of the most consistent sides in recent years at the group stage, Giles has not taken them through to a T20 finals day.

Forty-over cricket has proved more fertile and last season the Bears lifted the CB40 Trophy at Lord’s a year after winning the Pro 40 Division Two in its final year but this season has seen the hitherto well-oiled 40-over machine splutter.

So there is plenty of work for the director of cricket to tackle yet.

“There is still a lot to do here,” Giles said. “I am very ambitious and those ambitions remain but there are still prizes I would like to win with Warwickshire. I have no plans on disappearing anywhere.

“We are putting together a good side here. It just depends how long the bosses think I’m the man for the job. I don’t see the job as necessarily having a shelf-life.

"Some guys at other counties have been around quite a while. Steve Rhodes has been around a lot longer than me. So have Martin Moxon and Geoff Cook.

“The job has its ups and downs and this time of year is tough, when you have 11 guys on one-year contracts and there are difficult decisions to make.

"But while I am enjoying it and have the desire to keep improving the team and myself I don’t see why I wouldn’t keep doing it.

“Losing games, as we have too often this season in one-day cricket, is not a nice part of the job. It gives you headaches and sometimes sleepless nights but that comes with the job and it’s okay as long as we are still moving in the right direction overall which I think we are.

“Hopefully no-one can argue that in the last four years we have improved the side and made good signings rather than gone for quick-fixes.

“I take a lot of things personally, like the T20 form. I didn’t enjoy that at all but then there is the wanting to get better and the challenge in that. I want to improve and win things. That desire remains as intense as ever.”

That desire for improvement has encountered a sizeable glitch in 20 and 40-over cricket this season with the tailing off of form in the CB40 coming as a particular surprise.

Giles knows the simple explanation for that has been that too many players have not played well enough often enough, though he does flag up the sizeable hole left by two key components of the 2010 success – Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott – as a factor.

“It isn’t an excuse but a simple fact that there is still a slight hangover from losing our England boys in one-day cricket,” he said.

“If you look at the CB40 last year, Trott and Bell played the first six games and then came back for what was effectively a quarter-final. Then Belly played in the semi and final.

“We still have other good, experienced players and I think those guys now understand that they have to put in big performances. It’s no good getting 20s and 30s.

“The games we won in T20 were when Will Porterfield played really well and got past 50.

"That’s part of our planning, for one guy to get a score and others to bat round him. It didn’t happen anywhere near often enough.”