MUTTIAH Muralitharan signed off for Lancashire in predictably brilliant style with seven more wickets to spin them into the top half of the Championship table.

And now skipper John Crawley is aiming for the top three.

Murali took the last seven wickets as Derbyshire were skittled for 135 after a vital century from Graham Lloyd had given him 327 to defend.

It gave the Sri Lankan wizard match figures of 11 for 61 and left him with the amazing tally of 66 wickets from 12 Championship innings at an average of less than 12 - a performance which has dragged Lancashire from the bottom three to the top nine with four consecutive wins.

Now Crawley wants Lancashire to show they can do just as well without him. "Murali has been amazing for us. I don't think there has been anyone as prolific as that in recent years.

"But we still need a couple more wins to make sure we are in the First Division next year. And if we can get three wins from the five games we have remaining, third place is not out of the running," said Crawley. Crawley also praised three partnerships for setting up Lancashire's latest win. "It was a good pitch to bowl on but we won the game with the partnerships between Glen Chapple, Richard Green and Warren Hegg in the first innings, and then Warren and Graham Lloyd in the second."

Hegg and Lloyd took their sixth wicket stand, worth 53 overnight, to 113 yesterday morning.

And although Hegg narrowly missed out on his half century for the second time in the match, Lloyd reached his 50 in over two hours and then raced to his second century of the season from only 55 more balls with a total of 16 fours.

Peter Marton claimed the first two Derbyshire wicketsand seven in the match. Then it was over to Murali, who ripped out the last six Derby wickets inside seven overs after tea.

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