Sussex's Trophy showdown turned into a two-day non-event in blustery Manchester.

But, as the county faced up to another setback in their stuttering limited overs season, they had some justification for believing that the real damage to their C&G Trophy hopes had come long before the first ball of this contest was bowled.

The county were on the back foot from the moment Chris Adams lost the toss and was invited to bat first on Wednesday.

They never looked remotely like repairing the damage yesterday, done on that first stop-start afternoon, when their batting effort was hindered by murky light, damp conditions, interruptions for rain and the sort of high wind you would normally expect to encounter on a bracing day at Beachy Head.

Skipper Adams asked his tail-enders to add 50 to his side's overnight 119-7 and give them a fighting chance of making the quarter-finals.

They fell 20 short but in the end it did not matter.

Andy Flintoff completed a man -of -the -match performance with a brisk half century, pulling Adams and Jason Lewry for huge sixes, and Lancashire were home and dry in time for a lateish lunch at around 2pm.

Yesterday's events were depressingly predictable from a Sussex point of view.

Even the home members failed to get too excited. Their biggest round of applause greeted the announcement that local hero Mike Atherton had returned, albeit reluctantly, to the captaincy of the England team.

Atherton's contribution to this match which included three slip catches, had ended by the time the news was confirmed of his return to the helm.

His departure, to a thin edge to the keeper in Mark Robinson's second over, was followed by a scalp for Lewry, who defeated pinch hitter John Wood's extravagant attempt at a drive.

Wood had already done the job for which he was pushed up the order, clobbering early runs and hitting James Kirtley out of the attack after his first two overs into the breeze, which cost 25 runs.

Flintoff then picked up the attacking mantle. He reached 50 in 76 balls, including seven fours, and rounded things off by disdainfully driving Mike Yardy's only two deliveries of the match through mid off.

Mark Davis flighted a delivery through John Crawley's attempted sweep for Sussex's only other success with the ball.

Davis also featured in the morning rush to add precious runs.

He progressed from an overnight 16, stepping back to despatch Peter Martin through the offside twice in one over, but saw the last three wickets tumble in 43 deliveries at the other end.

Lewry was particularly infuriated to guide Martin straight to gully, having just picked up a four with a similar shot.

Kirtley and Robinson failed to delay proceedings too long for the couple of hundred spectators dotted around Manchester's spacious Test Match venue.

Lancashire will not have any trouble filling their ground in the week of the quarter-finals. Robbie Williams is playing three concerts at the venue and will pull in a total of 150,000 fans.

Meanwhile the cricketers are forced to move out to Blackpool for their Trophy tie with Durham.

For Sussex, the next few days are all about turning the tide back on the South Coast, as Essex head for Hove for a crunch Norwich Union League contest on Monday.