[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

First plays second at Old Trafford on Monday, with either Worcestershire or Lancashire set to end their winning streak, and the other side gaining a vital early boost in the promotion race.

The corresponding fixture last season at Southport was a hard one to swallow, as the Pears looked firm favourites to win right until the last day, when an unbreakable partnership slowly wrested the game away. No shortage of runs for Lancs, with Rob Jones leading on 190 so far, Dane Vilas on 165, Keaton Jennings on 161 and Haseeb Hameed on 150. With the ball, Richard Gleeson leads the way with 10 wickets, Tom Bailey has 8, Jimmy Anderson, Glenn Maxwell and Graham Onions all have 6, while Josh Bohannon and Liam Livingstone have picked up a couple apiece.

For Worcestershire, Riki Wessels has weighed in with 161 runs, ahead of Ben Cox with 153, Ross Whiteley with 129 and Daryl Mitchell with a comparatively sedate 123. Charlie Morris has stormed to the top of the wicket-taking chart with 15 at a remarkable 12.67 average, but Josh Tongue is hot on his heels with 12 at 14.92, and the returning Joe Leach wasted no time picking up 6. If Callum Ferguson is available again then I'd expect him to make his Championship debut; Tongue misses out with a niggle, and will probably give way to Wayne Parnell, but otherwise we should be looking at an unchanged side.

Probable Worcestershire XI: Mitchell, Fell, Ferguson, Dell, Wessels, Cox, Whiteley, Barnard, Leach, Parnell, Morris