ahead for Lancashire

LANCASHIRE will not find it easy to put themselves back on the top rung of county cricket.

The relegation of the side from the top flight was disappointing, but perhaps predictable given the situation they were in going into the final game of season against Gloucestershire at Old Trafford.

They tried to escape but it was too big an 'ask' and the truth is that poor performances earlier in the season were at the root of their demise and not the displays in matches at the end of the season.

And any excuses that are offered for the championship failings really don't wash.

Missing the services of Andy Flintoff and James Anderson can't count as they knew they would get very few games out of their centrally contracted players.

And anyone who tries to claim they were unlucky with injuries has also got it wrong.

In the end it came down to Stuart Law and Carl Hooper being out, which is hardly any worse than any other side in the championship suffered over the season.

The fact that Lancashire finished as runners-up in the one-day league's top flight and reached the finals of the Twenty20 doesn't suggest they were a side ravaged by injuries - you aren't fit for one-day games and then not fit for the championship.

I will give the players their due as I was down at Old Trafford last week and everyone was perfectly honest - they all said that they had failed to perform.

But the road back might not be as easy as a few people think.

Take a look at Yorkshire. They won the title just a couple of years back and then got relegated the next season.

The attitude may have been 'We will be back' but the truth of it is that they have just had their worst season in decades - Lancashire have got a lot of work to do.

ICC Trophy is a tournament too far

IT IS a shame that there could be a blot on the England cricket campaign this summer just because someone wanted a gimmicky competition to round off the season.

The value in the current ICC Trophy season is hard to work out.

Each group has produced just one match that matters - between the big guns in each section - and has attracted attendances that have struggled to actually measure up to being called crowds.

It might have been better to have held a Twenty20 competition that brought the fans in but, apart from the obvious crowd-pullers between India and Pakistan and today's England against Australia match, there have been few games in the tournament that are of interest to your average spectator.

Most sports fans will have turned their attention to football, and really the value of another international competition at this stage of the summer is questionable.

If England win the final then fine, but if they lose then it is an unnecessary blot on what has been a successful summer.

But it is also hard to see what value it has been to some of the lesser nations taking part. Not one of them has made an impact.

And for the USA it could have set the game back years. They got hammered in both games they played and will have gone home having learned little by struggling to reach the lunch break.

For the emerging nations there would be more value in playing more tournaments between themselves.

The USA, Scotland, Holland, Bangladesh and even the current Zimbabwe side, could probably benefit from playing more games at that level rather than trying to break into the top flight of international cricket too soon. It may seem tough to say 'go play amongst youselves', but the simple fact is that they are not good enough.