LANCASHIRE are in an unfamilar position at the bottom of the Norwich Union National League's first Division after their third consecutive one day defeat at Old Trafford yesterday.

They were beaten by 12 runs by Worcestershire Royals at Old Trafford to leave them with four points from a tie and a washout in four games so far this year.

Bill Athey, the Worcestershire coach, still refused to rule out a Lightning title charge, saying: "You can't rule out Lancashire even at this stage."

But at the moment too many of those good players are struggling, in one day cricket at least. Neil Fairbrother and Andy Flintoff did their bit, putting on 68 inside 11 overs for the third wicket to leave Lancashire well set on 106-3 in reply to Worcester's 216 -7.

But Sourav Ganguly and Graham Lloyd then went cheaply, as Mike Atherton and John Crawley had done earlier, leaving Fairbrother and Warren Hegg with an uphill struggle.

Fairbrother continued his consistent one day form by reaching his half century from 59 balls with a six and three fours, and battled on to 75. But young Worcester paceman Kabir Ali returned to dismiss him and Hegg for 33 in consecutive overs.

Even then Lancashire would normally have backed their tail to pic up the 20 runs still needed from the last five overs. But that was reckoning without Aussie pacemen Glen McGrath, who had already had a verbal battle with Hegg and now fired out Chris Schofield with his first ball and Glen Chapple in his next over to end with 3-11 from 8.4 overs, although Lancashire were unlucky when Mike Smethurst was run out by a freakish piece of fielding by McGrath to cut their challnege short.

They had fought back well with the ball, restricting Worcester to 37 runs from their last seven overs as Flintoff claimed 3-41 to go with his hard hitting 64.

But at the moment Lancashire seem unable to get everything together in a one day game, leaving them with a battle to avoid relegation in the series of floodlit matches coming up at Old Trafford in the next two months.

WORCESTER

P Pollard b Flintoff...40

E Wilson b Ganguly...38

G Hick c Hegg b Scofield...21

V Solanki not out...59

D Leatherdale bn Flintoff...26

S Rhodes b Flintoff...3

S Lampitt b Austin...3

D Catterall n Chapple...2

R Illingworth not out...1

Extras...23

Total (7wkts)...216

Bowling: Chapple 9-1-26-1; Austin 8-0-33-1; Smethurst 6-0-37-0; Flintoff 9-0-41-3; Scofield 9-0-51-1; Ganguly 4-0-14-1.

LANCASHIRE

M Atherton b Kabir...1

J Crawley c Kabir b Lampitt...8

A Flintoff c Hick b Leatherdale...64

N Fairbrother b Kabir...75

S Ganguly c Catterall b Illingworth...2

G Lloyd lbw McGrath...2

W Hegg c Leatherdale b Kabir...33

C Schofield b McGrath...3

I Austin not out...1

G Chappel b McGrath...2

M Smethurst run out...0

Extras...13

Total...204

Bowling: McGrath 8.4-0-11-3; Kabir 6-0-44-3; Lampitt 9-2-40-1; Leatherdale 9-0-38-1

NCL LEAGUE

P W L Td Nr Pts

Somerset... 4 4 0 0 0 16

Worcestershire... 5 4 1 9 9 16

Gloucestershire... 5 3 2 0 0 12

Leicestershire... 5 2 1 2 0 12

Yorkshire... 4 2 2 0 0 8

Kent... 6 1 3 0 2 8

Sussex... 6 1 3 1 1 8

Northants... 5 1 4 0 0 4

Lancashire... 4 0 2 1 1 4