LANCASHIRE have enjoyed some great days in their domination of one-day cricket in the last decade.

Yesterday at Bristol though, was surely one of the worst, as Gloucestershire confirmed their right to Lancashire's crown by reaching their fourth consecutive Lord's final.

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong for Lancashire -- and not all of their problems were self-inflicted.

They never really recovered from the fourth ball of the Gloucestershire innings when the former Derbyshire veteran Kim Barnett tried to cut Glen Chapple, and a loud snick went through to Warren Hegg.

Lancashire did not even bother appealing, merely started celebrating, it was such an obvious caught behind.

But controversial former Test umpire Alan Whitehead, who was last week censured by the authorities for a clash with Warwickshire seamer Dougie Brown, not only turned down the appeal -- he rubbed salt into Lancashire's wounds by giving a wide.

The Lancashire players were stunned, with Hegg, Neil Fairbrother and skipper John Crawley visibly abusing Barnett.

They would have been even more annoyed if they had seen Channel 4's Snickometer, which confirmed there had been a thick edge.

And to make things worse for Lancashire, Barnett went on to make 80, the top score of the match, sharing an infuriating partnership of 125 with Jack Russell.

Russell, who came in at number three, is the most annoying of opponents at the best of times. But he drove Lancashire to distraction yesterday with one of the streakiest half centuries in living memory as countless times he was beaten only to play and miss or edge through the slips.

"I've never seen so many edges in a one-day game," grimaced Lancashire coach Bob Simpson.

But Simpson refused to use that or Barnett's great escape as an excuse for Lancashire's defeat. "That's life, you have to accept decisions like that, you don't have to be deflated," he added.

"It was not a good performance. We bowled too wide and you can't do that in one-day cricket."

Crawley, though, did not hang around to talk to the press, his mood not helped by an inept Lancashire batting performance against some truly outstanding Gloucestershire fielding.

Mike Atherton was brilliantly caught at second slip by home skipper Mark Alleyne, who had already hit 36 from 27 balls and then claimed 1-20 in 10 overs to earn the man of the match award.

But Sourav Ganguly's prolific NatWest run came to an irresponsible and unnecessary end as an attempted heave over mid-wicket was acrobatically taken by Jonathan Lewis at third man.

Andy Flintoff threatened a repeat of his quarter final heroics against Surrey with several crisp boundaries, but ran out of luck when the pull shot which brought him so many runs at the Oval merely picked out Jeremy Snape at square leg.

Neil Fairbrother was frustrated by Alleyne and lofted a catch to long on, and Lancashire's chances finally disappeared when Crawley, who had batted beautifully for 41, was run out by Joe Scuderi.

That left them on 90-5 and they limped along to 150 all out, 98 short of Gloucestershire's total.

Now a season which promised so much is in danger of delivering nothing. This was Lancashire's second semi-final defeat at Bristol, and their Championship hopes all but disappeared with last week's heavy loss at Surrey.

But they can still salvage some consolation by avoiding relegation from the First Division of the National League, starting with tonight's floodlit match against Kent at Old Trafford. GLOUCESTERSHIRE

T Hancock c Atherton b Martin ... 26

K Barnett c Ganguly b Martin ... 80

R Russell c and b Schofield ... 55

J Snape c Hegg b Martin ... 8

M Alleyne not out ... 36

M Windows run out ... 3

C Taylor b Schofield ... 5

M Ball b Austin ... 1

J Lewis not out ... 4

Extras ... 30

Total (7 wkts) ... 248

Bowling: Chapple 9-1-53-0; Austin 9-0-29-1; Martin 19-0-44-3; Flintoff 4-0-16-0; Scuderi 4-0-23-0; Ganguly 4-0-20-0; Schofield 10-0-52-2

LANCASHIRE

M Atherton c Alleyne b Lewis ... 2

S Ganguly c Lewis b Smith ... 4

A Flintoff c Hancock b Averis ... 22

J Crawley run out ... 41

N Fairbrother c Lewis b Alleyne ... 15

J Scuderi lbw Ball ... 7

W Hegg run out ... 3

C Schofield b Ball ... 1

G Chapple c and b Smith ... 6

I Austin not out ... 18

P Martin st Russell b Averis ... 18

Extras ... 13

Total (all out) ... 150

Bowling: Lewis 9-1-30-1; Smith 19-4-18-2; Averis 7.2-1-34-2; Alleyne 10-1-20-1; Ball 9-1-41-2