MIKE Atherton and John Crawley are running out of time to find form before the Ashes. And they are not helped by the fixture planning of English Cricket.

Lancashire's England batsmen missed a golden chance of runs in the Benson and Hedges Cup tie against Minor Counties at Walsall yesterday.

Atherton was ruled out with the minor groin strain he picked up batting at Derby on Sunday, while Crawley's miserable B&H run continued with another duck, leaving his tally in the competition at two runs in four innings.

But even if both had played and succeeded, a one day game against a team of part timers is hardly suitable preparation for facing Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and co this summer.

Yet Atherton and Crawley, who are both struggling for runs, have only had one first class innings each so far this season. And there is only one more chance, the championship match against Notts at Old Trafford starting a week tomnorrow, before their first clash with the Aussies in three Texaco Trophy internationals.

That is partly because of bad weather which washed out the last two days of their opening championship game against Durham. Also, Lancashire miss out on the second round of championship fixtures starting tomorrow. But surely if the England and Wales Cricket Board are serious about making the national team the top priority, they cannot be happy with a county programme which seems designed to stop players like Atherton having some first class practice at the time they need it most.

Lancashire now seem certain to miss out on the quarter finals after blowing the chance to boost their run rate against the Minor Counties as they slumped to 41-5.

All the damage was done by three of the five former Lancashire players in the Minor Counties team. Neal Radford, who started his English career at Old Trafford before going on to Worcestershire where he became an international bowler, claimed three wickets.

Marcus Sharp, released by Lancashire three years ago and now playing for Cumberland but still living in Clitheroe, bowled his 10 overs straight through to pick up the wickets of Crawley and Paddy McKeown at a cost of just 17.

Crawley was superbly caught one handed at mid off by Jonathan Fielding, who gave a noisy travelling army of personal supporters from his Clitheroe club even more to cheer with the wickets of Wasim Akram and Neil Fairbrother.

Fielding showed why he has done so well since joining Clitheroe with a tight spell when Fairbrother and Akram were trying to get going, and suggested that Lancashire may have been premature to discard him, although he suffered a little at the hands of Warren Hegg later in his spell.

Hegg and Fairbrother had both been cautious for most of a partnership of 101 after coming together with Lancashire still in deep trouble at 98-6 but stepped up the pace superbly in the last five overs to set up a final total of 210-7. Fairbrother eventually went for 62 from 129 balls, his third and slowest one day half century of the season, while Hegg was unbeaten on 54 including two huge sixes.

But torrential rain and freezing winds then arrived from the north to leave Lancashire wondering today of they would even miss out on taking two points from the Minor Counties who moved untorubled onto seven today, which would make all the run rate calculations irrelevant.

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