Lancashire’s cricket director Mike Watkinson says the club must not slump after the departure of coach Peter Moores.
Newly-appointed England coach Moores took charge of the club for the final time in their draw against Warwickshire at Old Trafford and Lancashire head into their Championship clash with Northamptonshire without a permanent coach.
Watkinson believes that the club must not rush to appoint Moores’ successor and insists they must keep moving forward.
“At Lancashire we need to make sure we don’t lose momentum,” Watkinson told the media at Old Trafford.
“What that looks like in the months and years ahead we’ve yet to determine.
“We realised we were not going to have a coach like Mooresy for 20 years.
“It’s now a nice challenge to build on the work that Peter did.”
After two matches, newly promoted Lancashire currently sit bottom of Division One of the County Championship after defeat to Nottinghamshire and their rain-affected draw with Warwickshire.
In truth, bad light may well have saved Lancashire from defeat against Warwickshire – forcing the players off with The Bears needing just 25 runs from 27 balls.
Northants, Lancashire’s next opponents, sit just one place and one point above the Red Rose on 13 points.
They too were promoted back to Division One for this season and also claimed the FLT20 trophy last year.
Northants were hammered by an innings and 120 runs by Yorkshire last time out and will be looking to bounce back with a win against Lancashire at the County Ground.
Lancashire will have to be wary of the threat of South-African all-rounder Andrew Hall, who last season amassed 936 Division Two runs at an average of 55.05 as well as taking 37 wickets.
Paul Horton was the standout performer with the bat for Lancashire against Warwickshire, hitting scores of 83 and 84.
The opener is pleased with his form but is concerned that the team are still not managing to post big totals.
“Last year we scored enough runs but there have been times when we haven’t,” Australian Horton said.
“We’ve taken one batting point from our first two games which isn’t good enough.
“We need people to step up so we can score upwards of 400 because that’s what’s going to win games of cricket for us.”
Lancashire won both matches against Northants last season by eight wickets and head to the County Ground on Sunday seeking their first win of 2014.
Main image courtesy of ESPNcricinfo via YouTube, with thanks.
