Lancashire head coach Dale Benkenstein

After five rounds of the County Championship, Lancashire sit dead last in Division Two, having failed to register a win yet this season.

For a club steeped in history, one of the founding members of the County Championship and with resources at their disposal that are the envy of every other side in the division, this is their rock bottom.

That low was hit when they gave up a commanding position against Northants last week. Having had them six down with a lead of 102 going into day three, Northants’ advantage was eked out to 235 by the end of the innings, with No.9 Ben Sanderson picking off Lancashire’s medium-pacers to score a 28-ball 65. A collapse from 116-2 to 165 all out in the fourth innings consigned them to a 70-run defeat.

While many expected head coach Dale Benkenstein to carry the can, this week it was Keaton Jennings who resigned as Lancashire captain. Australian overseas batter Marcus Harris, who has already scored 749 runs at 83.22 this season, will take over the reins having played just five matches for the club. But it will take a monumental effort to reverse the side’s rapidly spiralling situation, and quieten the growing anger among their fanbase.

From 2024 relegation, to 2025 promotion favourites

Lancashire were relegated last year after finishing ninth in Division One. Despite having won only three games in 2024, they were firm favourites to bounce straight back up this year. The prospect of James Anderson’s availability, Harris’s arrival and simply their identity didn’t match-up with the prospect of more than a year in the second division.

On paper, Lancashire have the standout lineup in Division Two. Jennings has averaged four figures of runs per season over the last three, while Josh Bohannon was Division One’s leading run-scorer in 2023. The addition of Harris to that batting order, as well as promising young talent in George Balderson and Matty Hurst, makes for a formidable batting order. On top of that, the promised return of Anderson meant that Lancashire would have the most prized player in the competition across both divisions. The prospect of the greatest English seamer of all time terrorising Division Two batters provided reassurance for a bowling attack which had previously struggled to take 20 wickets.

That’s where the seeds of Lancashire’s struggles can be found. While they were runners up in all three domestic competitions in 2022, they slipped to fifth in the Championship in 2023, having drawn 10 of their 14 games. Of those, all five of the matches they played at Old Trafford ended in draws, with their only home win of the season coming at Southport. In 2024, they were only able to pick up one win at their premier ground in their last home match of the season.

Those warning signs have developed into sirens at the start of this season, with all three matches they’ve played at Old Trafford so far ending in draws. While previously a lack of losses provided a points cushion, the difficulty of taking wickets on home turf means their campaign has one hand tied behind its back, without a strong fortress on which division-winning campaigns are built.

Equally, the promise of Anderson’s return has been delayed by a calf injury – although he will play in Lancashire’s fixture against Derbyshire this week. While that should help with their wicket-taking struggles, heavy reliance on a 42-year-old to take 20 wickets shows just how deep structural problems at the club go. Outside of Harris’ exceptional returns with the bat, only Josh Bohannon averages more than 35 with the bat so far this season, highlighting the problems with bringing home grown talent through to senior success.

Benkenstein's unwanted record

Dale Benkenstein's appointment before the 2024 season didn’t come with the fanfare of performance a new coach normally rides in on. Having had a brief stint with Lancashire as a batting coach in 2021 – a year in which they finished second in the Bob Willis Trophy – his first spell as a full-time head coach was far less successful. In his first year in charge of Gloucestershire, they finished bottom of Division One, before plummeting to the bottom of Division Two in 2023 without a single win in their campaign. Across his two seasons with Gloucestershire before returning to Lancs, Benkenstein presided over just two red-ball wins.

While a bedding-in period with a new county is acceptable, Lancashire’s 2024 campaign pushed that to its limit. Away from the Championship, they finished dead last in their One Day Cup group, and were comprehensively defeated by Sussex in the quarter finals of the T20 Blast. Now 18 months on from his appointment, he has presided over just three Championship wins from 19 matches.

In an interview on Lancs TV following the defeat against Northants, Benkenstein cut a glum figure. “The bottom line is it isn’t good enough,” he said. “We’re a better side than that and good sides when they get sides in those positions, we’ve got to be ruthless and nail them. That comes down to each individual’s contribution in the middle.”

That result, however, was too much to go without leadership change, and while Benkenstein’s position feels less tenable with each passing defeat, it was Jennings who released some of that pressure with his resignation. “I felt we need a fresh pair of eyes and some fresh ideas out in the middle with no baggage of the past,” said Benkenstein. “Ultimately I would want a Lancashire player that’s captain of Lancashire but I don’t feel there is someone right now who is ready to do the job.”

The bottom line is, if Harris’ interim leadership isn’t enough for results to change, it likely won’t be only Benkenstein out of a job. Last week, Lancashire director of cricket performance Mark Chilton issued an apology to fans for the start to the season, labelling it “not acceptable”. With growing ire from members over his position at the club, as well as CEO Daniel Gidney’s, further losses could mean a complete leadership change.

There is room, however, for some optimism amidst the despair over the position Lancashire currently find themselves in. Despite sitting bottom of the table, they’re only 15 points off third-placed Middlesex, and a win against Derbyshire at Old Trafford would be a significant step. With two rounds to go before the June break in action, the table could look very different in two weeks time, potentially giving the club a chance for some brief respite.

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