Lilley: "We want to be up there and win the league."

Arron Lilley believes that Lancashire still have a long way to go before they can be confident that they have secured promotion to the first division of the County Championship.

The Red Rose are currently 68 points ahead of Glamorgan after an emphatic innings and 157-run victory against the Welsh outfit at Colwyn Bay, but they still have important fixtures against Glamorgan and Surrey before the end of the season.

“We aren’t counting our chickens,” Lilley said. “There is plenty of cricket still to be played. There are four games left and we still have to play Glamorgan and Surrey at home, so hopefully we get some good results against them two.

“We want to be up there and win the league rather than go up as second. Second goes up as well but we have been top of the league right from the start, so for us to go the whole season and maintain our position would be fantastic,” he added.

Lancashire needed five wickets on the final day of their trip to Colwyn Bay and a purple patch of five wickets for 12 runs in the space of 34 balls secured a convincing win for the Division Two leaders, who are 32 points ahead of Surrey having played one more game.

A mammoth first-innings total of 698/5 saw Lancashire record their highest ever partnership for any wicket when Alviro Petersen and Ashwell Prince added 501 runs for the third-wicket stand, with both batsmen recording career-best score in the process.

Lilley said: “It was great to get maximum points and I feel that we beat them in all areas throughout the four days. Credit to Ashwell and Alviro for the 500 partnership, it was incredible to watch.”

The biggest threat to Lancashire’s bid for victory was the weather and persistnet rain throughout the morning forced a delayed start, but once play got underway the visitors seized their opportunity, claiming the final five wickets in under an hour.

Lilley added: “We knew that there was a bit of bad weather about so we tried to go as hard as possible last night and take all ten wickets. We always knew that there would be a window of opportunity for us today to back our skills and get over the line.

“We thought it might swing a little bit and Chappie and Jarv have bowled really well throughout the game on a flat wicket and Jim got the wicket to breakthrough and then the umpires were going to come off for bad light so that is what made the change to spin.”

Lilley claimed two wickets in the same over, striking with his second delivery of the day to remove Craig Meschede and two balls later he removed the hard-hitting Graham Wagg, with both batsmen returning to the pavilion without scoring.

Simon Kerrigan then added two more wickets to finish with 4-28, his best figures of the season so far, claiming the last two wickets to secure victory. “Kegsy bowled really well to get four wickets and for me to get two wickets in an over opened the gates,” said Lilley.

“After yesterday and the dual that I had with him [Wagg] where I got a bit over-excited, it was really nice to get him out. I just thought that he was going to try and hit me over my head so I was just putting the ball in the right area and hoping I could get the wicket.”

“They had to bat for 60 or 70 overs so it was always going to be very tough. You try to play some shots but it is hard when you have to stay focused for that amount of time. For them to bat 70 overs with the bottom five batters is a big ask and we had to patient because we knew once we got that window of opportunity the wickets would come," he added.