ASHLEY Giles refuses to accept that Lancashire are pretty much home and hosed in the LV= County Championship promotion race.

Giles saw his side complete their sixth win from nine matches inside three days against Leicestershire at Emirates Old Trafford to move to 167 points at the top of Division Two.

Lancashire won the second tier crown with 238 points from 16 matches in 2013, while Northamptonshire were promoted with 202.

Last year Hampshire and Worcestershire were promoted with 240 and 237 respectively.

Giles, however, will not rest easy just yet: “We’re still not there in my mind,” said the Red Rose cricket director and head coach.

“The only thing on our mind at the moment, which was our goal at the start of the season, is to win Division Two. That has to be our aim. Going up is important, but we’re in this division to win it.

“We’ve given ourselves the best chance. It’s important that we keep building on that success. We’ve got next week off, but I think we’ve got three games before we have a proper break for some of the 50-over stuff.

“If we can continue to play some really strong cricket through that period, we’ll be in a really strong position.

“At the start of the season, with all due respect to Leicestershire, you identify the two games against them as ones you want to win. We have done that home and away.

“The team effort throughout this campaign has been brilliant.”

Lancashire’s success has been built around Ashwell Prince’s 939 Championship runs and 55 wickets for Kyle Jarvis, with both performances being the best in the country.

In Alex Davies with 38 dismissals, they also have the most prolific wicketkeeper in either division.

But wrapping up the win over Leicestershire by an innings owed a lot to Arron Lilley’s all-round display during Tuesday’s third day, with him hitting 59 off 41 balls balls and taking 4-28 with his off-spinners.

And Lilley has echoed his coach’s thoughts.

"We know we are flying at the minute,” he added. “But we've got another two home games to come on the bounce, Northants and Essex. It would be good for us to win those.

“It's the same with any team. If you start getting ahead of yourselves, you get complacent. We need to keep our high standards.”

Lancashire face Worcestershire in the NatWest T20 Blast at Emirates Old Trafford tonight looking for a third straight win.