LANCASHIRE were thanking their lucky stars at Old Trafford today - for losing the toss!
Skipper John Crawley was planning to bat - reluctantly - if Yorkshire's David Byas had called wrong when the Roses Match finally got underway yesterday lunchtime.
Instead Byas got it right, chose to bat - and saw his team skittled for 67, their lowest Roses total since 1968.
Lancashire's bowlers exploited the helpful conditions superbly, with three great wickets each for Glen Chapple and Peter Martin, and a new Championship best of 4-21 for Richard Green - including a devastating spell of 4-0 in eight balls.
Andy Flintoff then produced the best batting of the day, hammering a four and two sixes off three consecutive balls from Gavin Hamilton as, after losing three quick wickets for 22, Lancashire stormed into the lead inside 17 overs.
Green's performance came after another stop-start season for the 23-year-old from Warrington.
He started well with 4-86 at Leicester in May, but since then he had only managed four more wickets in 92 Championship overs as Muttiah Muralitharan and the other spinners have hogged the limelight.
"That's been the problem, you do need a settled run in the team," he admitted.
"But with the end of the season coming, I decided to just go out there and enjoy it. I did that in the last game at Derby, even though I didn't take a wicket, and I certainly enjoyed it today.
"It was swinging big-time." Twice Green put himself on a hat-trick, sending back first Richard Harden and Anthony McGrath, then Craig White and Hamilton, with consecutive balls. Each time he was denied, and after tea he wasn't given the chance to match his previous career best of 6-41 - also against Yorkshire at Old Trafford, in a first class friendly in 1996 - as Chapple and Martin polished off the last four wickets in impressive style.
It was Yorkshire's lowest Roses total since they were all out for 61 in 1968, again at Old Trafford - when Brian Statham claimed 6-34 in his last match.
Only Worsley-born Michael Vaughan, who set a new Yorkshire and Roses record by taking 59 minutes and 47 balls to get off the mark, resisted for long.
Lancashire's second team suffered an unusual loss at Nelson yesterday - to Italy! But the key figure in the Italians' win was Colne's Aussie all-rounder Joe Scuderi, who hit the game's only half century.
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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