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Mike Atherton is unlikley to make his Lancashire comeback until next month. The former England captain, who was forced out of the World Cup by a recurrence of his long term back problem had been tipped to return in the championship game against Northants which started at Old Trafford yesterday.

But Atherton spent the day at Lord's, where he was part of the BBC's commentary team for England's game against Sri Lanka, and Lancashire cricket secretary Dave Edmundson said: ``It's looking increasingly likely that it will be at least the end of the month.

Atherton did not miss much at Old Trafford yesterday. The start was delayed by four hours because torrential overnight rain had left the outfield saturated - ducks were swimming at the Warwick Road end on Thursday evening.

And when play did begin, the Northants batsmen rode their luck to bore a small crowd into submission.

John Crawley won the toss and put the visitors in, and Glen Chapple made an early breakthrough when he had Northants' Aussie captain Matthew Hayden well caught by Crawley, diving to his right at mid off.

Chapple and Peter Martin continued to find plenty of movement off a slow, green pitch but Mal Loye and especially Rob Bailey survived a series of lbw appeals to put on 76 in 35 painstaking overs.

Mike Watkinson finally broke the stand in only his second over, deceiving Bailey with a slower ball, but Loye - who hit 149 and 71 against Lancashire at Northampton last season - cruised to another half century in 135 balls and 181 minutes and Northants resumed today on 128-2 off 51 overs.