James Taylor's feet have hardly touched the ground in the last month despite the cricket season coming to an end.

Prestigious awards from the Cricket Writers' Club and PCA have highlighted his progress through 2009, while Taylor was also honoured at Leicestershire's own awards night where he virtually swept the board.

Amid that clutch of presentation nights the 19-year-old found time to spend a week in India with the Rajasthan Royals and, perhaps most significantly, was named as a member of the England Performance Programme this winter.

The chance to visit India came via a former County colleague, ex-Foxes skipper Jeremy Snape, who is the Royals' performance coach.

"Jeremy rang me to see if I could go out there for their development programme and to see where I was at," said Taylor.

"I was out there for five days and it was a great experience playing with Indian lads and in different conditions to those I'm used to.

"It is the first time I have been to India.

"The closest I'd had was a month in Sri Lanka.

"It was a great opportunity to show what I can do, but I also learned a lot."

Taylor also had the opportunity to tap into Snape's sports psychology expertise, which is backed by a highly-successful career as a first-class player.

"He was a great help," said Taylor.

"I had played briefly with Jeremy but it was good to talk to him and particularly hear about his experience with the South African national side."

Taylor has had a brief period to recharge his batteries, although he sounds as fresh now as he did at the start of the season.

The serious work begins again when the Performance Programme players get together at Loughborough early next month for 10 days of preparation ahead of a five-week stint at the high performance centre in Pretoria, South Africa.

"The last seven months have been tough mentally and physically," said the County star. "But I can't wait to get back into it.

"It is a great honour to be selected for the Performance Programme and good to be recognised by the ECB for what I have done this year.

"At the start of the season I wasn't looking too far ahead but now I'm looking forward to the challenge that is coming up over the next few months."

There were no surprises as County handed out the club silverware at Poachers Bistro in Thurlaston, former Leicestershire and England paceman Jonathan Agnew enhancing the evening with a question-and-answer session.

Taylor had already been selected by Leicestershire supporters as their Player of the Year and had taken the Roger Goadby Trophy for his excellent work in the field.

At Poachers, he was named the club's Cricketer of the Year as well as scooping the coveted Players' Player honour. To put the icing on the cake, Taylor's unbeaten double century against Surrey at the Brit Oval earned him the John Josephs Award for the best individual performance of the season. That innings also contributed to him being named the club's best batsman of 2009, giving him the Livingstone Award.

The Livingstone Award for the most improved young uncapped player was won by Jigar Naik, who made significant strides with both his off-spin and his batting.

Iain O'Brien took the Frank S Smith Award for his bowling.