SAJID Mahmood received a crash course in one-day cricket, Lancashire style, under the Old Trafford floodlights last night.

The 20-year-old Egerton seamer was padded up in a nervous dressing room as skipper Warren Hegg smashed the winning runs against Hampshire with two balls to spare.

Lancashire had needed seven runs to win off the last over from young Hampshire seamer James Tomlinson, and Hegg and Gary Yates gave the 6,591 crowd a scare with a kamikaze piece of running off the first ball when either of them could have been run out, but they ended up scrambling two.

Hegg has been struggling badly for runs and it showed as after 19 balls he was still in single figures but the captain kept his cool and with four more needed off the last three balls, he launched Tomlinson to the mid on boundary.

"We made hard work of it but it's great to get another win," said Hegg, who has rarely looked more relieved in a Lancashire shirt.

Lightning have now won three of their last four matches to climb to fifth in the Second Division table and with Surrey losing to Middlesex, they are only two points off the promotion pace - although Surrey do have two games in hand.

Lancashire were well on top for most of the match with James Anderson grabbing three for 42 as Hampshire struggled to 188 for eight in their 45 overs, and Mahmood also bowling steadily on his debut as well as claiming an excellent run out.

Mark Chilton and Stuart Law then steered Lancashire to 120 for one with a second wicket stand of 116, Law benefiting from an unusual reprieve from third umpire Vanburn Holder to make his third consecutive League half century.

Law was on 23 out of 47 for one when Hampshire's Neil Johnson claimed to have caught him at slip. The Australian was halfway back to the pavilion but Sky TV replays showed that the ball had not carried and the umpires referred the decision to Holder, who gave Law now out. He accepted Johnson's apology and went on to make 64 from 73 balls but after Law was brilliantly run out by Dimitri Mascarenhas from long off, Lancashire got the jitters under the floodlights. Neil Fairbrother's misery continued with a fourth consecutive duck in the competition and Chilton went for a battling 66 but Glen Chapple put Lancashire back on course and Hegg struck the crucial blow. ends...