It seems churlish to criticise Lancashire for coming second in every competition in 2022. For much of the season, they were brilliant, but the fact is that Lancashire has not claimed any silverware since winning the T20 Blast in 2015. In a 7 year period, Lancashire ought to be winning something.
I decided to try and rate Lancashire’s performance in recent years, which has certainly included variety. Before we go into this though, a few points need to be made.
Off the field
This type of analysis has limitations. Results are not the only thing for a club like Lancashire. The ground has to function 365 days a year – it has to be used and it has to generate revenue. Lancashire had the extra challenge resulting from the cancellation of the 2021 India test match – and of course, India almost certainly would have thrashed England in 2021 but they ended up losing the rescheduled game (at Edgbaston) to a ‘new’ England team.
Looking after the ground is one thing, but what about the players? Mentioning India reminds us that players have to be recruited, paid and kept at the club – which is an increasing challenge in the modern world of franchises. When a County has the players, they then have to be looked after – physically and mentally.
One thing Lancs have done quite well is encouraging local talent. A quick look at the 2023 Playfair Cricket Annual tells me that Lancashire has a squad of 28 (Gloucestershire have 23, Surrey 33 – so this would appear to be middle ground). Of Lancashire’s 28, 18 are from relatively local areas (Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria). Nottinghamshire gets a lot of criticism for this – and it must be said that only 12 of the Nottinghamshire squad are ‘ relatively local’ – though at the moment the number who have moved from Leicestershire is low!
We must also mention another obligation for any Cricket Club – but County Cricket especially is under the spotlight now when it comes to inclusivity. Discrimination must not be tolerated – so far Lancashire have not been impacted in the way of Yorkshire and Essex, but it is hard to imagine that stories will not appear at some point about things that might have been tolerated in the past. Improvement is still needed.
On the pitch
For the rest of this piece, we will be talking about results and stats.
All that being said here, I wanted to form a reasoned judgement as to Lancashire’s recent on-field performance, and I chose to do this with a simple RAG (Red, Amber, Green) – based purely on season results:
- Each tournament would be rated separately for each year
- In the County Championship, a place in the top three can be considered a good result, and would therefore result in a Green score.
- Lower-placed Championship results above the Division 1 relegation zone can be considered ‘Acceptable’ and would result in an Amber.
- For a team with Lancashire’s resources, we have to the Championship Division 2 (and relegation) as a failure, resulting in a Red. This means that 2019 is still considered a failure.
- When it comes to One Day Cricket, expectations are high due to Lancashire’s pedigree – though the Glory Days of the 90s are long gone. Despite that, we can only say that a campaign has been successful if it has involved an appearance in a Final. It seems harsh – but it takes a Final to get a One Day Green.
- Reaching the One Day knockouts is Acceptable, no better, and is therefore Amber.
- Failure to get past the Group Stages must be considered a Fail, and means Red.
| County Championship | T20 Blast | One Day Cup | |
| 2022 | 2nd | 2nd | 2nd |
| 2021 | 2nd | QF | Group – 4th |
| 2020 | 3rd | SF | |
| 2019 | Div 2 1st | QF | SF |
| 2018 | 7th – relegated | QF | Group – 6th |
| 2017 | 2nd | Group – 7th | Group – 4th |
| 2016 | 7th | Group – 7th | Group – 9th |
| 2015 | Div 2 2nd | Winners | Group – 5th |
Lancs need to win more games
Yes obviously! But here, I am really talking about the Championship. In 2023 we now have had two rounds of the Championship and Lancashire has two draws. In the first round, Lancashire had to dig in for the draw having been mainly outclassed by Surrey. In the second, they were well-placed to beat Essex, but even with James Anderson playing, were not able to do so. The weather played a part, but Essex was only 4 down at the end.
Back to my 2023 Playfair, and immediately you see some strange statistics. Lancashire, like Surrey, only lost 1 Championship fixture but with 6 Draws, one more than Surrey, drew more than anyone except Northamptonshire, who lost 5 games. You might be tempted to assume that the issue is that Lancashire did not take enough wickets, but the strange thing is that they scored 39 bonus bowling points.
No doubt, the Manchester rain cost key opportunities to win games and perhaps added to the Draw tally – and that might also explain why Hampshire came third despite winning even more games than Surrey – perhaps not so many weather-impacted draws on the South Coast.
Whatever the reason for the draws, if Lancashire had managed to convert a couple of high scoring draws (Yorkshire comes to mind) into wins they would have beaten Surrey and won the Championship.
A word about pitches – some people might note that Old Trafford always supplies great pitches, and those people might wonder if that leads to Draws. Good pitches have not led to many draws involving England recently – and we will move on to talking about the batters.
Players need to Kick On
Can some of the individuals in the team kick on? Looking at the first class fixtures for 2022, only 5 batters have an average of 40 or more. The openers, Keaton Jennings and Luke Wells, formed an impressive partnership (average 72 and 52 respectively), but these are the only 2 with batting averages over 50. If we compare this again to Surrey, but for consistency restrict it to players who scored over 300 runs, Surrey have 6 batters, but more notable is that 3 of those have averages over 70. One of those 2 is Ollie Pope. Lancashire’s Pope equivalent is obviously Josh Bohannon, whose 2022 figures are fine, but over a quarter of his season’s runs came in his 231 against Gloucestershire.
Bowling is a similar story. Hassan Ali and Anderson have good statistics but only played a small number of matches. Only Tom Bailey took more than 50 wickets, and Matt Parkinson just 33 – and Old Trafford’s great pitches are good for bowlers and batters.
For Lancashire to take a trophy in any tournament, a couple of players are going to have to have an absolutely stellar season. Keaton Jennings this year will have the added pressure of Captaincy, so at least one of Bohannon, Steven Croft and Dane Vilas will need to make a lot of runs. Bohannon might also need to look at his strike rate – his 231 came off 467 balls, which was ok when Lancashire only had to bat once. Perhaps the problem is not so much the bowlers, as the time left in the game?
Saying that, another good season for Bailey will need to be backed up by Will Williams, Luke Wood and Parkinson. Parkinson has slipped off England’s radar – but a few 5 wicket hauls would change all that.
Under pressure?
It is hard to throw this one at the Lancashire team, who only lost 1 Championship Game and made the Final of two knockout tournaments. However, when we consider the One Day finals, it is something Lancashire need to think about. How could they approach the high-pressure scenarios a bit better?
In the One Day Cup against Kent, Lancashire chasing were 126/2 off 21 overs, and had 8 balls left when they were bowled out for 285 – they only needed another 21 runs. In the T20 Blast final it was also a chase, and it was 104/4 in the 13th over. Several big shots were attempted which failed, and also we saw 2 run-outs. The striking thing is that all of Jennings, Croft, Vilas and Luke Wells got past 20 – just one of them needed to be around at the end.
I would not want this to be overthought – Kent and Hampshire deserved to win these games. But at times, a lack of experience showed, and some poor decisions were made too. We cannot use the lack of experience excuse again this year.
Summary
Writing the summary is a lot easier than putting it into practice. Lancashire were impressive in 2022 and the players should be applauded. It is not easy to keep a high standard, particularly on cold days in April and September.
To win the Championship is going to need a couple of players to have spectacular seasons. To win the One Day tournaments needs the consistency of 2022, plus some slightly better decision-making in the finals.
It is harsh. Lancs had a great 2022. But the fans want to see some silverware.
Cricketed 