ALEX Davies is determined to grab the gloves back for Lancashire sooner rather than later as he continues to battle a finger injury.

The Darwen ace has seen Dane Villas behind the stumps for the Red Rose in recent weeks having suffered the injury in a One-Day Cup clash with Nottinghamshire in mid-May.

Although Davies has kept his place in the side as a batter - and was promoted to open when the County Championship resumed against Essex last week with Keaton Jennings on England duty - he wants to keep as well.

"The hands are good. I am recovering well, but I'm still not sure when I will get the gloves back, hopefully sooner rather than later," Davies said of his injury battle.

"It was a finger injury against Notts on the TV. I stood up to Keats and got one on the end of the finger and had to go off.

"I had one earlier in the season as well on the same finger which keeps coming back but all I can do is keep rehabbing and keep my place as a batter for now but I want my gloves back as soon as I can.

"Dane is an international keeper so as much as I want the gloves and as happy as he is for me to have the gloves, when it is not physically possible he is more than willing to take it on."

Davies said he doesn't really feel the injury when batting, about from the occasional moment when the ball hits the wrong place on the bat.

But after a bright to the season with the bat he is determined to up his contribution to the cause after a recent slump that appears to have affected all of Lancashire's top order.

After a run of eight successive one-day fixtures the Red Rose returned to Championship action against Essex at Old Trafford but Davies' contributions of two and a duck at the top of the order summed up a general malaise.

The 23-year-old smashed 147 early in the One-Day Cup campaign and followed it up with a run of six successive scores between 10 and 59, before his double failure against last season's champions took his First-class record this season to 199 runs in 10 innings.

"I think I would have liked to have score more runs then I have done," Davies said before the clash with Essex.

"I had a good knock there (147) and an okay one day campaign but I didn’t score anywhere near as many runs as I would have liked to in the Championship in the first five games but those things happen and that has gone now.

"I have tried my best to address what I wasn’t feeling too great at the crease about and all I can do now is look forward and try and score my runs in the red ball before the T20 comes back."

"A lot of it was mental, technique normally stays the same. It was more mental mistakes that I was making so if I can cut them out, and bat a long period of time then there is no reason why I can’t score a lot of runs."

Lancashire sit fifth in the Championship table, with one win and three defeats from their opening six games.

"I think the first two games were disappointing, we were nowhere near at our best," Davies said.

"But then the three Championship games after that we dominated, winning one but the other two were draws highly in our favour where we just couldn’t get over the line."