Chilton and Sutcliffe complete win

Lancashire 505 and 86 for 0 (Sutcliffe 34*, Chilton 39*) beat Middlesex 161 and 426 by 10 wickets
Scorecard

Lancashire completed the formalities of a convincing victory at Lord's in little over an hour on the final morning, jumping back to the top of the Championship table. Mark Chilton and Iain Sutcliffe reached the target with ease against a dispirited Middlesex team that only began to show fight when the match was beyond saving.

The Middlesex bowlers did not put up much of an obstacle and the Lancashire openers tucked into plenty of loose offerings, especially from Johann Louw. When the spinners came on they were not much better as Chilton laced boundaries on the both sides of the pitch.

The Championship now takes a two-week break for the zonal rounds of the Twenty20. The only blot on Lancashire's horizon is the injury to Luke Sutton, whose broken thumb will rule him out for about a month. Other than that, the team is in fine order with contributions from all the players. What will be especially pleasing for Chilton and Mike Watkinson, the cricket manager, will be the way the youngsters such as Kyle Hogg, Tom Smith and Oliver Newby have filled in for the big names who are injured or with England.

Middlesex have no such luxuries. They, too, are shorn of quality players such as Andrew Strauss, Ed Joyce and Jamie Dalrymple, but the reserves have not been able to fill the gap. That is with the notable exception of David Nash, who produced two gritty innings on his return to the team in place of Chris Scott.

He told the Press Association: "We didn't play very well at all and deserved what we got. Early on in the Lancashire innings we had them at 80 for two but didn't press home that advantage.

"That has been one of our problems this season and we have to improve quickly if we want to survive. On a personal note, I am very pleased to have got back into the team; it's been a long time. I have just been plugging away in the second team and doing well which has probably helped.

"I just wanted to go out there and perform to the best of my ability and try to make it difficult to leave me out of the next match."

If Middlesex want to turn their season around, and often the Twenty20 can prove a starting point, they will need more players to follow Nash's example.