IS Lancashire's name on the Benson and Hedges Cup?

Lady Luck was certainly smiling on them as they squeezed into the quarter finals, and were then handed a trip to Leicester in the last eight.

That will mean an early chance for revenge against the Foxes, who seemed to have ended Lancashire's hopes of qualifying by beating them at Old Trafford on Sunday.

Lancashire made their own luck by crushing Yorkshire at Headingley.

That gave them five points from their five group matches but even then two other results had to go their way.

But with Leicestershire doing them a favour by thrashing Notts, and Ronnie Irani leading Essex to victory over Kent at Canterbury in the southern division, Lancashire took the second "fastest loser" spot in the last eight - ahead of Northants, who ended with six points in the Mid-West section, but finished fourth so missed out.

"Fortune has smiled on us," admitted cricket manager Mike Watkinson. "At the start of the day I wouldn't have given 50-50 for our chances. So for us to be in the quarter finals is fantastic."

Watkinson admitted that even after Lancashire had wrapped up their eight-wicket win at Headingley, he had virtually given up on making the last eight with Essex struggling at Kent.

"They were five wickets down so I went to the gym," he said. But skipper Warren Hegg was following Irani's match-winning innings on Ceefax, and Watkinson added: "An hour or so later Chuckie rang my mobile to tell me we were in the quarter finals. It's hardly believable. Everything went our way."

Lancashire even had a few slices of luck in their win against Yorkshire, notably when captain Hegg finally won the toss - his first in seven matches this season.

He had no hesitation in putting Yorkshire in and his seamers did the rest, shrugging off the absence of Peter Martin with his stiff back to skittle the Tykes for 81 - their lowest ever B&H score. There were three more wickets for John Wood, who has now taken 11 in four matches, two each for Glen Chapple and Kyle Hogg and a competition-best four for 11 for Andy Flintoff.

Chapple then blasted away any doubts about the outcome by slamming 42 off 26 balls, and fittingly David Byas was at the crease against his former county when Mark Chilton hit the winning runs with more than 38 of Lancashire's 50 overs remaining.

For Hegg, the win "helped to wipe out the memories" of Lancashire's embarrassing thrashing by Yorkshire in a floodlit National League game at Headingley two years ago.

Now they have the chance to erase more recent unpleasant memories in the quarter final - not only of Sunday's defeat by Leicestershire at Old Trafford, but also losing at Grace Road in the C&G Trophy semi final last August.