Lancashire and their coach, former Australian captain Bobby Simpson, are getting increasingly frustrated about being labelled a "nearly side".

Last season they finished runners-up in the County Championship for the third time in a row and reached the semi-finals of the two one-day knock-out competitions. To add insult to injury, they were relegated from Division One of the National League.

Simpson said: "Some people might regard finishing runners-up three years on the trot as a jolly good show, but in my book it just makes things more exasperating.

"Surrey are a good side with some good players, and they were worthy champions, but we should have given them more of a run for their money.

"The bowlers did reasonably well despite the loss of Peter Martin and Ian Austin for long periods."

Leg spinner Chris Schofield is optimistic about the side's chances this summer. "I do not see why we cannot win the championship," he said.

"There are just some games where we should be beating teams, but we do not always finish it off for some reason. If we can turn those draws into some big wins, we will be up there."

This summer Old Trafford welcomes back the magical Muttiah Muralitharan to bolster the county's hopes of depriving Surrey of another championship.

Although Murali will miss some six weeks of the season because of Sri Lanka's home series against South Africa, his presence for the rest of the season will no doubt boost the county's bid for honours.

But if Lancashire are to be serious contenders for the championship, they must improve their batting; last summer nobody got close to a 1,000 runs. They will of course be without the services of Michael Atherton for large chunks of the season as he is one of England's centrally contracted players.

Squad: J Anderson, M Atherton, I Austin, G Chapple, M Chilton, J Crawley (captain), R Driver, N Fairbrother, A Flintoff, R Green, J Haynes, W Hegg, K Hogg, G Keedy, G LLoyd, P Martin, M Muralitharan, T Roberts, C Schofield, J Scuderi, M Smethurst, M Watkinson, J Wood, G Yates.

Overseas: M Muralitharan (Sri Lanka).

In: J Anderson, R Driver (Worcestershire), K Hogg, M Muralitharan, T Roberts, J Wood (Durham).

Out: S Ganguly, M Harvey, P McKeown, P Ridgway, N Wood.

© CricInfo Ltd.