NEIL FAIRBROTHER is still sweating on his fitness for tomorrow's C&G semi final against Leicestershire at Grace Road.

Fairbrother aggravated an old calf problem in his brilliant century at Colwyn Bay last week, and says he is "touch and go" for Lancashire's biggest match of the season.

"As you get older the body takes a bit longer to heal," said the 37-year-old. "I've done this before and it's taken a week to 10 days so we'll see."

But Fairbrother is desperate to play with the chance of an 11th Lord's final on the horizon -- which, with his future at the end of this season still uncertain, could easily be his last.

"It would be lovely to play in another final," he added. "I've not been there for two or three years and I've very, very fond memories of those games with Lancashire at Lord's.

"They are fantastic days and perhaps to go out with one of the last games being a Lord's final will be lovely. But I know the semi final is going to be very, very difficult. Leicester away was probably the hardest draw we could have had.

"Full credit to them; they're playing a really positive game of one day cricket at the moment. But on the other side of that we've just played well in a quarter final, we'll hopefully have everybody fit and quite a bit of experience on the field."

Fairbrother reckons the presence of two Manchester Grammar School old boys, Mike Atherton and Gary Yates, will give Lancashire a huge boost. "It's always nice for these big games to have Athers back in the ranks because whether it's four day or one day, he has a presence within the team and you always look to him for a lead at the top of the innings," he explained. "Whether it's his last chance of a Lord's final for Lancashire, we don't know that either yet.

"Yatesy was my man of the match in the quarter final at Blackpool. When he came on to bowl, they were 90 for two and we were looking like we were going to chase a big score and two for 20-odd off his 10 overs was a fantastic return."

Fairbrother had never lost in 10 semi finals until last year, when Lancashire were convincingly beaten by Gloucestershire in both the NatWest Trophy and the Benson and Hedges Cup.

But he does have happy memories of their last big game at Leicester.

"I was captain back in 1993, and rather embarrassingly I was man of the match for making 60-odd even though Wasim had bowled a spell of five for one. But this is going to be totally different. As I said they are probably the best one-day team in the country at the moment, so it's a massive test.

"You keep playing for days like this. We'll just see what happens."