County Championship: Lancashire v Middlesex

Lancashire dominated the cricket that was played on another rain-affected day of their County Championship Division Two match with Middlesex.

Heavy rain overnight and in the morning had delayed the third day's play at Emirates Old Trafford until 15:00 BST.

Tom Aspinwall claimed the final two wickets as Middlesex went from their overnight 189-8 to 211 all out to finish with 4-62.

Lancashire openers Luke Wells and Keaton Jennings then put on an unbroken 105 in 25 overs, with Wells an impressive 60 not out and the Red Rose county only 106 runs behind.

But bad light brought a premature finish to proceedings with only 31.4 overs possible and a total of 210 overs lost so far across the match, rendering the chances of a victory for either side almost impossible and ending Middlesex's remote hopes of promotion back to Division One.

Anyone waking up in Manchester on Wednesday would have found the prospect of play highly unlikely, given the volume of rain.

But once it brightened up, impressive work from the groundstaff enabled play to finally begin in mid-afternoon, although Lancashire captain Sir James Anderson was absent from the field, awaiting the result of a scan on a side issue.

Zafar Gofar had added nine to his overnight 16 when he became Aspinwall's third victim, well caught at deep square leg by substitute Will Williams.

His fourth wicket finished the innings with last man Henry Brookes caught behind for two as Middlesex failed to pick up any batting points.

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