Lancashire reinforced and ready to take next step to county crown

The lowest temperature recorded in the UK on Monday was -7.8C, at the village of Braemar in the Cairngorms. Much of Britain has had a sun-kissed few days, however, and in the Cornish town of Bude the temperature at one stage hit 17.7C – nevertheless at Taunton and the Ageas Bowl cricketers still pulled on their long-sleeve cable knits as they headed out for the first domestic friendlies of 2022. A new season is upon us, the start of the County Championship just a fortnight away.

They may be defending champions but Warwickshire approach the new campaign third in the bookies’ estimations, behind Essex and the narrow favourites, Lancashire. As those frosty friendlies began last year’s runners-up might not have been in action but they would have been feeling the chill particularly sharply, having returned only on Sunday from a pre-season warm-weather training camp in Dubai – undertaken, for the first time, together with Lancashire’s women’s team. Having narrowly missed out on the title last year in a dramatic final week they seem ready to push on, with ambitions also for the Royal London One-Day Cup:

“We’re looking at both competitions and thinking there’s no reason why we can’t win both,” says Mark Chilton, the former player and longtime coach who was promoted last September to director of cricket performance at Old Trafford.

“Last year will have got some useful experience into lots of people, getting close [in the County Championship], but also a lot of people felt we were capable of winning and there was more than a tinge of disappointment that we didn’t,” says Chilton, who will combine his new role with his duties as assistant coach.

“I think we knew we were capable of being champions last year, and therefore you feel