SAJID Mahmood announced his return to county cricket with further evidence that he can be a real handful for batsmen.

After a week recovering from England's one-day international series in India, he came back in our Cheltenham & Gloucester game against Leicester and played a significant part in a great win.

We felt after our innings that we might have put 20 or so more runs on the board and it meant that when Leicester batted we had to be on top of our game.

Saj provided the inspiration with an early wicket, Luke Sutton held a brilliant catch and Tom Smith put in a superb eight-overs spell.

It was great to see Saj enjoying himself. There were a few loose deliveries but he is not in the side to bowl at 80 miles an hour, just to tie batsmen down. His job is to take wickets and generally upset the opposition and he fits in with our other bowlers perfectly.

Balanced

In fact we have a nicely balanced attack and they have started the season in good form.

It will be interesting to see how they get on in this week's Liverpool Victoria championship game at Chester-le-Street because Durham's batsmen have already been in the runs, hammering Kent last week.

That win gave Durham a flying start to the championship while we were held up by rain in our opening match against Hampshire.

It was disappointing but we have almost come to expect a rain interrupted first fixture.

Luckily the weather held good on Sunday and we produced plenty of individual performances.

But what pleased me most was the team's work ethic and the intensity of our fielding.

What do you make of Lancs' start? Have your say.

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