LANCASHIRE coach Ashley Giles admitted he was slightly disappointed with his side’s second place finish in the County Championship Division Two and wants his team to keep improving next season.

A final day draw with Essex was not enough for the Red Rose to lift the title as Surrey claimed the honours, despite Lancashire having led the way for much of the season.

But Giles, who also steered his side to the T20 Blast title at Edgbaston, was nonetheless pleased to secure promotion.

He said: “Congratulations to Surrey, they have played some excellent cricket throughout the season, they have won more games than us and they deserved to win the title.

“It is a bit disappointing to finish runners-up because we led the table for most of the summer but we can learn lessons from that as well.

“I always think that you should be aiming to keep level for certain points of the season and then run through the line and you do that by keeping your best players on the park and keep that same attitude and intensity all the way through.

“I’m really pleased with the efforts of all the players this season because they have worked hard but we still need to understand where we get better and how we can improve and we’ll get together next week and start to look at that.”