LANCASHIRE need a resounding victory over Middlesex in the final County Championship match of the season to avoid relegation to the second division.

The Red Rose welcome back Pakistan fast bowler Junaid Khan for the game, which begins today at Old Trafford, following the departure of Australian overseas batsman Usman Khawaja, who has returned to play for Queensland.

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It will only be Khan’s second first-class game for the county, with his first coming in 2011 against Durham at Liverpool, and is much needed news with Lancashire without Chorley’s Tom Smith and Kabir Ali through injury, as well as Burnley’s James Anderson, who hasn’t been given permission to play by the ECB.

Lancashire go into the match 19 points behind the visitors, and need to win and claim at least three more bonus points than Middlesex.

Left-arm spinner Simon Kerrigan believes the Red Rose must make the most of their second chance to avoid the drop, after Middlesex failed to beat Somerset at Taunton last week setting up a final game showdown with Lancashire falling to Sussex last time out.

“I think we felt pretty down after the Sussex game, where we had high hopes of bowling them out on the last day,” he said. “I think we all felt like our fate had been handed to us.

“We’ve been given a bonus opportunity. Whilst we are not in a no lose situation, far from it, we felt we were down really at the end of the last game.

“So to have a hope going into this last game, and it being at home, is promising. It would have been great had Somerset been able to bowl Middlesex out twice, but it wasn’t to be.”

After winning four of their first six matches in the Championship Middlesex haven’t won since, a run stretching back to mid-May.

“We’ve still got a chance, and if we have a really good game as a team you never know where we can get to,” added Kerrigan.

“I think there will be some tactics involved in terms of how many runs you get, do you want to declare, how many do we need to bowl them out for, little things like that. It’s going to be a game within a game I suppose.

“At the end of the day, if we play good cricket and win, we’re going to be unlucky if we don’t pip them to the post.”

The Red Rose’s toughest challenge may be scoring 400 runs in their first innings to achieve the maximum five batting points, with batting conditions tough in mid-September.

“If we do go down, it won’t be because of this game,” added Kerrigan, “it will be because of the other games we’ve played before that.

“At the end of the day, you are where you are for a reason. It’s just not come together for us apart from a couple of games really. Northants at home when we got a big score was the one that stands out.

“We’ve not played really, really poor cricket at any stage of the season. There have been times when we’ve played some really good cricket.”