MIKE Atherton fired another message to the England selectors with a match winning unbeaten 87 in his first one day innings of the season at Southampton yesterday.

Athers steered Lancashire to a four wicket victory over Hampshire Hawks which, with Yorkshire losing to Kent in Scarborough, takes Lightning joint top of the CGU National League.

It completed a superb weekend for Lancashire who also won the Championship game by eight wickets on Saturday - thanks mainly to seven more wickets for Muttiah Muralitharan - to make it three wins on the trot.

But the big question now is will Atherton be recalled by England for the Old Trafford Test a week on Thursday? He was expecting to bide his time for the rest of this season, with the selectors wanting evidence that the former captain has recovered from his back problems.

But England's miserable batting display at Lord's might cause a rethink. And with Nasser Hussain already ruled out of the third Test at Old Trafford by his finger injury, Atherton is even being tipped in some quarters to come back as captain.

The main message from yesterday's innings was that Atherton could have done a job for England in the World Cup.

Lancashire were set a target of 214 and Atherton timed the reply to perfection, striking the winning boundary in the last over. It was only his sixth four but his 98 came at a good rate off 127 balls as he steered the ball into the gaps and ran between the wickets expertly - with his back again showing no reaction.

He shared partnerships of 81 in 20 overs with John Crawley and 50 in eight with Graham Lloyd. Peter Martin had been the pick of the Lancashire attack, taking one for 24 off his nine overs, although Hampshire did well to get past 200 after slipping to 37-4. Their former captain John Stephenson top scored with 96 and Dimitri Mascarenhas added an important 40.

Lancashire have now won four games in succession with only the washout against Warwickshire last week interrupting their run, and will go into the floodlit double header agaisnt flagging Yorkshire full of confidence.

But before that there is the little matter of a NatWest Trophy quarter final against their Roses rivals at Old Trafford on Wednesday. And with Saturday's Championship win boosting their hopes of a top nine finish - although they remain just outside the top half - they are only 15 points behind third placed Hampshire. Things really are looking up.

The only cloud on the horizon is that Murali has to go home after the next game against Derbyshire. However, with 55 wickets from ten innings, he has already done his bit.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.