He did not travel to Bristol for yesterday's abandoned Sunday League game, and is expected to take the rest of this week off to recover from an exhausting Ashes series.
There is even a case for Atherton taking a complete break until the end of the season, much as he did last year, but Lancashire will leave that up to Athers himself.
He has a superb record in Roses cricket with six centuries, sharing Clive Lloyd's Lancashire record, but he is likely to be replaced in Wednesday's match by young Nathan Wood.
The 22-year-old was unlucky to miss out on Lancashire's last game at Derby after hitting half centuries in consecutive matches followed by a crucial 22 in the tense victory over Warwickshire at Blackpool. It will be a big occasion for Wood and his father, Barry, who made sure that Nathan was born in Yorkshire at Thornhill Edge. Lancashire will also have Andy Flintoff available as he has been released from the third under 19 Test against Zimbabwe, while there is real competition for places among the seam bowlers with Glen Chapple and Richard Green fit again and named in the team for Bristol yesterday along with Peter Martin, who came straight back from the Oval to try to keep Lancashire's title bid on track.
But they were denied by the weather, which prevented any play until after five o'clock - and then after Lancashire had reached 41-3 after 10 overs of a 17 over game, returned to force the match to be abandoned.
Warwickshire and Kent both dodged the showers to claim victories and Lancashire are now six points off the pace, with their remaining hopes of taking some silverware from the season virtually washed away.
¥Lancashire have made several changes to the playing hours for their games against Essex at Old Trafford next week. The start of the championship game has been brought forward to 10.15am on each of the four days (September 2-5), so that play can finish by 3.15pm on the last day (Friday) to allow Essex to get off to London for the following day's NatWat Trophy final. And because of that final the Sunday League game scheduled for September 7 has been put back to the following Tuesday, September 9 - with a 12.40pm start because it is being covered by Sky TV.