Dougie Brown believes New Zealand left-arm finger spinner Daniel Vettori can provide the missing component in Warwickshire's attack as he looks to win a fourth County Championship title with the Bears.
Ashley Giles' international calls before his hip problem meant the left-armer has only sporadically appeared in recent seasons.
Off-spinner Alex Loudon showed great promise last season, although the former Kent player would be the first to admit he is still on a learning curve.
But 27-year-old Vettori will arrive as the finished a rticle and will also strengthen an strong batting line-up in Division One of the Liverpool Victoria County Championship.
Brown, who made his county debut 15 years ago, said: "We've probably missed an out-and-out spinner for the last couple of seasons, even though we still managed to win the championship two years ago without one.
"We have missed a topclass spinner. We saw it last year. Taking nothing away from Alex Loudon, who did a great job last year, but he is a young and inexperienced spinner.
"Daniel gives us that experience. He can bowl when the seamers are maybe going around the park a little bit. He can bowl at the 'poor' end or he can bowl attacking towards the end of the game.
"He will be a great asset to the squad and it is up to us to score runs to allow him to give himself time to bowl the opposition out."
Brown, who won the first of his three county titles in 1994, is optimistic of mounting a strong challenge for silverware, saying: "I think it will go well this year.
"This time of the year is always a great time for optimism and enthusiasm, but there is a real sense of realism this year that we can actually achieve something really special.
"We recognise the inconsistency of last season. We were so topsy-turvy in the way we were playing. We were very indifferent.
"One thing we did the year before was score a barrel-load of runs and it gave the bowl-ers plenty of time to bowl the opposition out, even without the top-class spinner.
"Last season, we didn't score the runs we wanted and it put increased pressure on all the bowlers but we've got young batsmen coming through, we've got more experienced batsmen than there were last year, guys in good form on the back of good winters."
