Jarvis, Lilley rush Lancashire to innings win

Ashwell Prince, Arron Lilley and Kyle Jarvis all starred as Lancashire wrapped up a three-day win over Leicestershire at Old Trafford by an innings and 157 runs.

Prince completed a fourth century of the season during a morning session which saw Lancashire score 169 runs in 29 overs to advance their first innings from 314 for 4 to 483 all out. Prince, the veteran South African, moved from 74 not out overnight to 104 off 171 balls, while offspinner Arron Lilley's 59 off 41 marked his second successive fifty after one against Derbyshire at Southport last month.

Lilley then took three wickets in 13 balls shortly before tea as Leicestershire, faced with a first-innings deficit of 276, slumped to 90 for 6 inside 32 overs. He finished with 4 for 28 from 15 overs. The visitors were bowled out for 119 inside 49 overs as Jarvis finished with 5 for 44 from 15.4.

While Prince is the country's leading Championship run-scorer with 939 runs, Jarvis is the leading wicket-taker with 55 from nine matches, six of which the Division Two leaders have won. Here, they claimed 23 points to move to 167, and it is difficult to see how they cannot achieve an immediate return to Division One.

Seventh-wicket pair Prince and Lilley shared 57 in 8.2 overs during the morning, with six of Lancashire's first seven wickets all sharing half-century partnerships as Leicestershire toiled. Offspinner Jigar Naik claimed all of the six Lancashire wickets to fall during a 9.3-over spell which cost him 53 runs. He finished with a career best 8 for 179 from 44.3 overs, including getting Prince, Tom Bailey and Lilley all stumped.

Jarvis trapped Niall O'Brien lbw and bowled Angus Robson with an in-ducker as he offered no shot, leaving the score at 47 for 2 in the 12th over. James Faulkner had Mark Cosgrove caught at deep point in the 19th with 58 on the board.

Lilley then had Umar Akmal caught behind on the sweep, with the ball ricocheting up off the batsman's boot, Ned Eckersley caught at first slip and Ben Raine caught at second slip, the latter two in the 32nd over - 90 for six. Jarvis trapped Naik lbw and bowled Taylor with successive balls in the 41st over as Leicester slipped to 107 for 8.

Lilley had Andrea Agathangelou caught behind in the 48th before Jarvis got Charlie Shreck lbw in the next to wrap up the win. Leicester have now lost five of their eight matches.

"That was a great week," Lancashire cricket director and head coach Ashley Giles said. "I guess at the start of the season, you identify these two games against Leicester, with all due respect to them, as games you really want to win. We've done that home and away. There might be a bit of weather around tomorrow, so we stressed the importance this morning of trying to force a result today if we could. That meant batting well this morning and bowling well, and we did exactly that. All credit to the guys."

Leicestershire head coach Andrew McDonald bemoaned his side's performance: "We were pretty poor over these last three days, in particular with the batting efforts. Collectively, in two innings just over 300 runs, we've got to get better and we've got to improve. We were never in the game, and we've got to get back to the drawing board. We won the toss on a nice surface, good for batting, and we threw away the opportunity to drive the game. 207 on a good wicket after winning the toss was well below par. It's really disappointing to have this game over before the end of day three."