LANCASHIRE beat Somerset by eight wickets yesterday to claim their first outright County Championship title since 1934. Set 211 to win at Taunton, and knowing Warwickshire had drawn with Hampshire, they reached their target with more than five overs of the final day left.
Stephen Moore (71) and Paul Horton (54) got the run chase off to a flying start with a stand of 131 before Steven Croft and Karl Brown saw them home.
Peter Trego (120) had threatened to derail Lancashire as Somerset made 310.
Lancashire, who do not have a Test player, did tie for the County Championship with Surrey in 1950, but this was their first outright title win in 77 years.
At one stage it looked as though they would be denied as Trego led an impressive Somerset recovery from 130-7.
He was ably supported by Alfonso Thomas (18) in a stand of 75 for the eighth wicket, before going to his first Championship century of the summer in sharing 95 after lunch for the ninth wicket with Murali Kartik (65 not out).
But, when Gary Keedy ran-out Gemaal Hussain, Lancashire knew that they needed to score at around six runs an over in a session and a bit to win the title.
The opening partnership spanned just 17 overs and, when Moore was second out, Lancashire still needed 76 in 17 overs.
But Croft (40 not out) and Brown (33 not out) made light work of that task.
And Blackpool-born Croft had the honour of hitting the winning runs to spark understandably jubilant scenes as Lancashire, under the captain of a Yorkshireman, Glen Chapple, claimed their eighth County Championship title.
The biggest irony of Lancashire winning the title this year of all years was that it came in a season when they did not play a single match at Old Trafford – where the title was won by Nottinghamshire in the final moments of last season.
Due to the work on their famous old ground, apart from playing at the other ‘out’ grounds, Blackpool and Southport, they switched their other six matches to Aigburth.
But, after years of notoriously bad luck with the weather, fate played its part in deciding that the outcome of the Liverpool Victoria Championship would be that, with Liverpool as their base, Lancashire were victorious. (BBC Sport)