Moores opts for homegrown touch.

Lancashire were defeated by Nottinghamshire in
their first match of the 2014 season. 

Lancashire Coach, Peter Moores, has said that he wants to give preferential treatment to players at the club before considering whether or not to sign a replacement overseas player for Simon Katich.

South African batsman, Ashwell Prince, made100 in the opening fixture against Nottinghamshire, but the Lancashire squad seemed to be missing the vast experience that Katich brought last season.

But Moores believes that there is enough competition for places amongst the team and that an overseas player is currently surplus to requirements.

Moores said: “We want to give opportunity to our own. We have made no bones, we want to win trophies and we have got a competitive squad and we try to give our own players an opportunity.

“We believe pretty strongly that you don’t really know how good a player is until he gets the chance to play against top-flight players so the opportunity we are trying to give to people is part of your responsibility to the club.”

Homegrown talent has served a worthwhile purpose at Lancashire over the last few seasons and Moores believes that the players who are currently missing out on selection deserve to be given their chance.

“We have got some good young players and when you are leaving people like Browny  [Karl Brown] and Croft out it shows that we have got quality batsmen.

“The whole idea of county cricket is to win trophies and I think there is a responsibility to try and develop players as part of the job and see players come through so that is something we have pushed pretty strongly at Lancs over the last three or four years.

“It has paid us back with that Championship win in 2011 with players likes Simon Kerrigan and Procter’s who were just starting to emerge and they brought a freshness to the side that helped us and I think there is no reason why that wont happen again this year.”

Moores is amongst the prospective candidates to become the next England Coach, but was eager to dismiss any thoughts that his mind is not focused on his duties at Lancashire.

“When you are playing games like this it is easy to focus on Lancashire because I have committed like everybody else a lot of time and effort to set up the season and you owe a huge responsibility to everyone to make sure you focus on the job in hand.”