[themaclad]

One day stuff for a while first up 50 over against Notts

White ball cricket returns to the county calendar, and Lancashire are bidding for a second successive win over Nottinghamshire inside a week having beaten them in the Championship at Trent Bridge at the weekend.

Lancashire go in search of their first piece of one-day silverware since 1999 when they won the Sunday League, although they did win the T20 Blast three summers ago.

This is a blockbuster start to the campaign for Liam Livingstone’s side. They face the defending champions and last year’s limited overs double winners under lights and on Sky Sports (2pm).

Last summer, Lancashire finished fourth in the North with four wins and four defeats from their eight matches. Their haul of eight points was one worse off than the Outlaws, who finished third and went on to win the title by beating Surrey in the final.

Lancashire lost their first three matches before winning four of their last five.

In terms of the road to Lord’s, the final is on June 30.

The top team in each of the two groups advances directly to a home semi-final.

Second and third also qualify for the knockouts, with second playing third in the other group for the right to advance to the last four.



SQUAD NEWS
Jimmy Anderson, who has played the last two Championship matches, is not available as he prepares for England’s forthcoming Test series against Pakistan, starting at Lord’s next Thursday.

A number of Lancashire’s players who have not played Championship cricket so far this season who will come into contention, the likes of Stephen Parry and Karl Brown to name just two, have been playing one-day Trophy matches in the seconds during the last week.



OPPONENTS


Notts enjoyed a season to remember last year as they won the RL50, the T20 Blast and gained promotion back to Division One of the Championship.

A powerhouse batting unit and with a bowling attack led by England seamers present and past Jake Ball and Harry Gurney, they will be fancied for success again in 2018.

But, if Lancashire can win under lights tomorrow, it will really set them up for the rest of the competition.

Notts have started the Championship season well, winning three and losing two of their five matches. They beat Lancashire at Emirates Old Trafford during the opening week of the season before losing to Yorkshire at Headingley and the return against the Red Rose most recently.

Steven Mullaney captains the side in four-day and one-day cricket this season, with New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor their overseas player.



LAST TIME OUT
The Outlaws won last May’s North Division clash by seven wickets with four overs to spare as they chased a 261 target, with Samit Patel leading the way with an unbeaten 103 off 104 balls.

Lancashire elected to bat, but they did not build on an excellent start of 98-0 inside 17 overs, going on to make 260-6. Opener Karl Brown made 52 and Haseeb Hameed an unbeaten 75 from number three.

Australian fast bowler James Pattinson took two wickets, as did medium pacer Mullaney, who later supported Patel with 77 not out.

Lancashire were very much in the hunt with the ball as the hosts slipped to 84-3, but Patel and Mullaney shared an unbroken 181 to secure the two points.



WHAT THEY SAID


Lancashire captain Liam Livingstone is in confident mood ahead of the clash, admitting facing the champions first up is “a great start for us”.

“We’ve got some lads in decent form, so we’ll start on Thursday and give it everything we’ve got for that competition,” admitted the dynamic top order batsman.

“Notts are a great one-day side, and it’s a great start for us. We don’t need to big it up. At Old Trafford we play some good white ball cricket. Hopefully we can get off to a winning start.

“We haven’t had the greatest run in it for the last couple of years. We obviously finished very strongly last year, but I think we’ve got a great squad for all the white ball stuff, and I think we’re playing some very good cricket.

“It’s been quite tough at the start of the year for a few batters, so I’m sure the change to white ball will free a few people up.

“There should be some new faces in the side. There are lads playing well in the second team, so it’s exciting.”

[themaclad]

Notts 318 Parkinson 5 wickets may take some getting

[themaclad]

Lost by 12 after being 288-5

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Good game for the neutral, and cracking knock from Jennings; losing him was the real body blow.

[themaclad]

Cannot afford many defeats in RLC.

[themaclad]

Next up Durham who this season started level point with everybody after being shafted by the ECB in money and points term, lost most of their better players so a chance to win and more importantly an afternoon going brown. Here's the official line from Lancashire's equivalent to Pravda

Lancashire are bidding to bounce back from Thursday’s opening night defeat to champions Nottinghamshire as Durham visit.

The Red Rose county fell narrowly short in a high-scoring thriller against the Outlaws as they chased 319, with Keaton Jennings having a good day out with both ball and bat, taking two wickets and scoring a century.

Matt Parkinson, on his Lancashire List A debut like Jennings, picked up five wickets.



Jennings will face the county he left last September to make the move to the North West, as could Graham Onions, who was in Thursday’s squad without making the final eleven.

TEAM NEWS:

Alex Davies took a bang on his injured left thumb during the latter stages of the Notts innings and handed over the gloves to Dane Vilas, something he is likely to do for the entire match.

It could also be that Glen Chapple and Liam Livingstone opt for an extra seamer or batsman in the eleven for this clash.

OPPONENTS:

Durham endured a difficult summer last year in both Championship and T20 cricket having been hit hard by the ECB’s penalties for their well documented financial problems.

But the RL50 was their most productive format, winning four of their eight games, including beating champions in an early group game at Trent Bridge.

In fact, had they started the competition without an ECB two-point penalty, they would have qualified for the knockout stages a point ahead of champions Notts.

This year, they started on a level-footing points wise, although they were beaten in yesterday’s opener against Yorkshire at Emirates Riverside.

LAST TIME OUT:

Lancashire won the final group game of last year’s competition by 28 runs thanks largely to Dane Vilas’s fine 108, his second hundred of the campaign.

Vilas underpinned a total of 304-8, also including 50 from Alex Davies at the top of the order, with the South African fashioning a recovery from 126-4 in the 27th over having been inserted.

In reply, Durham were never realistically in the hunt at they slipped to 19-2, including the early loss of Keaton Jennings. Michael Richardson top-scored with 58, while Kyle Jarvis led the way with 3-42 from his 10 overs.

WHAT THEY SAID:

“It will be a little bit strange,” said Keaton Jennings ahead of his first encounter against Durham since leaving in September.

“I have a lot of my mates in that changing room, but hopefully we can get one over on them early in the season.

“The banter started ages ago with things like me saying to a couple of their guys ‘I’m going to get you out’ and vice versa.



“It’s all in good fun. I’m looking forward to it. It should be a good game.

“They are the kind of side that are going to cause a few upsets. There are some exciting cricketers in that changing room.

“There’s information that I can pass on to our guys to help us win the game. If they can pass on information, hopefully I can combat the way they try to exploit my skill set. That’s cricket.”

“Hopefully we play some really good cricket,” added Jennings, who has warned that Durham will be no pushovers.

“They’ve got some good cricketers. There’s Paul Collingwood coming in at five or six with some young cricketers around him.

“Michael Richardson scored plenty of runs last year, Stuey Poynter got 170 last week, Graham Clark’s a fantastic cricketer. That’s just to name a few.

“I don't think you’re guaranteed a win against them at all. You need to make sure you play good cricket.”

[themaclad]

Easy win against a poor Durham side, could really have declared when Jennings was out and would still probably have won. Durham's attack was carted all over the place by Davies with Jennings playing second fiddle.
Credit Durham once they broke the opening stand they kept at it and it was only a good 48 by Clark that got us to 314. Wickets fell on a regular basis in the Durham innings they did play some crap shots. Bailed out at 104-8 they made 122 nice win suspect we may have some tougher opposition to play

[themaclad]

Hameed century for Formby on Saturday and a century for the seconds today hopefully will get him back into the groove

[Marco4]

What's with Lancashire playing in Green?

[themaclad]

A.O . com sponsor them in the competition and their corporate colour is green