SAJID MAHMOOD and Mark Currie will replace Ryan Driver and Tim Roberts on the Lancashire staff next season.

And manager Mike Watkinson is also set to offer a full-time contract to Bolton schoolboy Tim Reece.

It means the Lancashire squad will be much younger in 2003, especially following the retirement of Neil Fairbrother and Graham Lloyd.

Sajid, Currie and Reece were all given their first-class debuts this summer, as well as Kyle Hogg and Burnley bowler James Anderson.

Currie, a batsman from Poynton, scored a half century against West Indies A in Liverpool, while Sajid is primarily a seamer although his 18 was Lancashire's second top score in the Championship match against Hampshire at Old Trafford - the game in which Alec Swann carried his bat.

Lancashire then gave Reece a first taste of the senior game in the last two games of the year, against Middlesex in the National League and Somerset in the Championship.

With Harbhajan Singh on the way from India to join last winter's new signings - Swann, Stuart Law and David Byas - it means Lancashire's squad has undergone its biggest shake-up for years, with the emergence of nine new players in less than 12 months.

But for Driver and Roberts, it is the end of the road - in each case after two seasons at Old Trafford.

Both had their moments with Driver, a 23-year-old left-hander signed from Worcestershire, scoring one half century and showing promise as an all-rounder this year after dropping down the order from opener to number six.

Roberts, a 24-year-old who like Driver was a graduate of Durham University, made a single Championship appearance at his old club Northants in 2001 and had a couple of first class games this year but was not able to convert the promise he showed in the second team.

Lancashire are still waiting for Byas to decide whether to delay his retirement for another year, and continue to be linked with Mal Loye, a batsman who has refused a new contract offer from Northants.

LANCASHIRE have been drawn away at Devon in the third round of the C&G Trophy next season. The game will be played on May 7, with the winners facing another away tie, at Berskhire or Durham, in the last 16 three weeks later.