Lancs stars ladder up to help

Lancashire's Saj Mahmood and Stephen Parry got stuck in at Southport & Birkdale CC to help them with their NatWest CricketForce 2011 event.

Club chairman Tony Elwood explained: "Because we have warm-up games the weekend of the ECB's national initiative on April 9-10 and also because there is a lot of work to do to get the ground ready for Lancashire's visit in July, we decided to hold our CricketForce event two weeks early.

"Last weekend's event was well supported with over 40 members helping out on day one, assisted by staff from NatWest's Southport branch."

England's Mahmood and county colleague Parry wasted no time and helped to paint the sightscreens at Trafalgar Road.

Lancashire play their match against LV= County Champions Nottinghamshire at Southport on July 26-29.