{"id":583932,"date":"2026-05-14T17:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/583932\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T17:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:05:08","slug":"lancashires-steven-croft-backs-batters-to-find-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/583932\/","title":{"rendered":"Lancashire&#8217;s Steven Croft backs batters to find form"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lancashire Cricket head coach Steven Croft says all their batters have the club&#8217;s full backing after a mixed start to the new County Championship season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Reds Roses are sitting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/cricket\/mens-england-division-two-multi-day\/table\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fourth in the table<\/a> after their opening five matches, recording two wins, two defeats and one draw. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The County has yet to pass 400 in any of their 10 innings so far, only passing 300 on three occasions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Croft told BBC Radio Lancashire &#8220;They just have to go and believe and trust in the process, and fully back it. Whoever goes out there has got the full support of their team-mates, the coaching staff and the whole club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You&#8217;re out there for a reason and we have to back ourselves when those lads step over the line. They are good enough, they just have to bring their practice form into game senarios.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Relegated in 2024, Lancashire began this season as one of the favourites for promotion. Keaton Jennings scored 1,054 runs in 2025 but missed their opening two matches with a calf injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The returning Aussie batter Marcus Harris has scored two of the county&#8217;s three individual centuries so far, with Paul Coughlin making 100 not out in their defeat at leaders Durham.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Croft says the general lack of runs isn&#8217;t for want of trying, adding: &#8220;I think it&#8217;s a mixture of a few things really. You watch the lads train and they&#8217;re putting their hours in so I don&#8217;t think its anything to do with that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think it&#8217;s just transferring that out into the middle. I know as a batter myself, a few games without a score, you start to get a bit itchy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Obviously promotion is a real priority and we need to get back on track for that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lancashire lost earlier this week, beaten at home <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/cricket\/scorecard\/e-233506\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">by Middlesex by six wickets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The table would look a lot healthier ahead of the forthcoming break for the T20 Blast with a home win over Worcestershire at Southport from Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Croft said: &#8220;To get three wins out of six would be ideal and hopefully just the two losses at that point. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;With that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/cricket\/scorecard\/e-233471\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">positive result<\/a> at Northants [in a drawn opening match] as well, just one wicket away from a victory in that game, it would be positive overall. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;ll be a long, hard-fought four days. Worcestershire are a really good side. We&#8217;ll want a response. Southport is usually a good cricket wicket. It has a bit on offer for spin, seam, and if you spend some time at the crease it can be fast-scoring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;ll be going into that game fully confident in our own ability and I want to climb back up that table. We want a response from the boys.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hear full ball-by-ball commentary on every County Championship game via BBC Sounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lancashire Cricket head coach Steven Croft says all their batters have the club&#8217;s full backing after a mixed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-583932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}