Sunday League

LANCASHIRE are back on top of the Sunday League and back in business as a Championship force.

But their plans for success on a third front, the NatWest Trophy, are being undermined by a growing injury crisis.

Lancashire meet struggling Sussex at Hove on Wednesday in the knowledge that Wasim Akram now looks set to be out for at least another month, and possibly the rest of the season, after his shoulder problem was diagnosed as bursitis.

And Peter Martin, hero of the stunning Championship victory over Middlesex with 13 wickets for 79, the best bowling performance in English cricket this season, is also a doubt after suffering a back spasm during the Axa Life League game at Uxbridge yesterday.

Martin was only able to bowl three overs and in the circumstances Lancashire did well to scramble a tie, only their ninth in 29 years of Sunday League cricket.

They got out of jail after starting the last over needing 13 to win, with Warren Hegg pouncing on a misfield on the cover boundary by Middlesex youngster Owais Shah to run two which allowed him to face Richard Johnson's next ball - which he hit for six.

Hegg and Martin were run out trying to turn ones into twos off the third and fourth balls, then Darren Shadford took a single from the fifth to leave the pressure on Gary Yates. He missed the last ball, but Middlesex wicket keeper Keith Brown also missed the stumps with his throw, allowing the Lancashire batsmen to take a bye - and a tie.

Two points leave them joint top with Essex, who lost to Somerset yesterday, and Kent. But Lancashire have played a game more, after dropping 12 points out of the last 20.

Still, they should be grateful to Neil Fairbrother that they are even in the race.

He played yet another masterful one-day innings after seeing Lancashire slip to 40-3 in reply to Middlesex's total of 197-9.

Fairbrother was supported by youngsters Andrew Flintoff and Mark Chilton in stands fo 59 and 50 until he was finally out for 70 from 85 balls in the 39th over. Earlier Darren Shadford had partly made up for the loss of Martin with Sunday best figures of 3-30, while Chilton also bowled well on his Sunday debut to take the crucial wicket of Mark Ramprakash and concede only 21 runs from his first seven overs.

But Jason Pooley hit one of two sixes from the 20-year-old's last over on his way to 73 from 72 balls, and Angus Fraser added two more sixes in the 39th over bowled by Mike Watkinson. Both Watkinson and Jason Gallian came through their comeback match and are also in contention for the NatWest tie, when Glen Chapple hopes to have shrugged off his stomach muscle injury and Mike Atherton and John Crawley should also return.

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