Lightning need a helping hand to stay in T20
LANCASHIRE will need a few favours tonight if they are to reach the last eight of the NatWest T20 Blast.
Lightning head into their final group game against Birmingham Bears at Emirates Old Trafford seventh in the North Group.
Defeat, and they are out. But even if they win, they also need two other results to go their way to secure a place in the top four of the table - and even then it may come down to net run rate.
Lancashire will need two of either Derbyshire (who are at home to already out Worcestershire), Northamptonshire (who host bottom-of-the-table Durham) or Leicestershire (who are at already-qualified Nottinghamshire) to lose of they are to have any chance of going through.
And their case won’t be helped by the weather, with rain forecast for Old Trafford tonight.
Of course, Lancashire won’t give up hope until they are mathematically out of it. And they are taking positives from 2015 when they scraped into the quarter-finals in the last round of games, and went on to win the trophy at Finals Day at Edgbaston for the first time in their history.
“First, we need to win, we need the two points,” said Arron Lilley, who was man of the match in Wednesday night’s win over Worcestershire.
“We have spoken about it feeling like 2015. Then we sneaked in at the last minute thanks to a rained off game.
“Hopefully, we can get over the line tonight, then we can go into the quarter-finals on the back of two wins from two games and momentum is with us.
“It’s at this stage of the competition where you need to get on a roll.”
Lancashire made a good start to their T20 Blast, but lost their way in the middle of the campaign.
“We lost at Liverpool off the last ball, we should have won that match,” said Lilley.
“The Yorkshire defeat at Headingley, we started badly and were chasing the game and it was always going to be a tough ask.
“T20 has its ups and downs, hopefully we can sneak through and get into the quarter-finals and then see what happens from there.”
Whether they progress or not, spinner Lilley has found a new role under Lancashire head coach Glen Chapple in this season’s Blast, coming in as a pinch-hitter at No.3 ahead of England ace Jos Buttler.
And he is relishing the chance to show what he can do with the bat.
“I enjoy the role at three. It has its ups and downs,” he said.
“I spoke to Glen Chapple about the role at the start of the campaign.
“In the powerplay overs, they want me to play my natural attacking game and not to be afraid to play my shots.
“Then outside of those six overs they want me to approach it as a normal batsman, scoring ones and twos and hitting the bad balls for boundaries.
“If the coach has the confidence and belief in me to play the role, then I am up for it.
“If I face a few too many balls and not scoring quickly, the pressure can get to you to hit a boundary.
“If I am not doing that there are lads behind me, like Jos Buttler, to do it.”