A day in the Lancashire sun

Posted by Tony Hutton

Thursday 8th April - Lancashire v Durham (Old Trafford)

Firstly I would like to thank Brian Sanderson for getting the blogging season off to such a good start with his comprehensive reports of the early days of the new cricket season.

Secondly on behalf of everyone connected with the cricket heritage project and all professional cricket watchers I would like to wish Peter Davies a speedy and full recovery from his recent illness. Hopefully he will be posting his first cricket tea report next Saturday.

Lancashire entertained county champions Durham in a two day friendly at Old Trafford in perfect weather condition. It could not have been better for the first county action with really warm sunshine for most of the day.

Durham batted for all the first day and made it all look rather easy with Tasmanian Michael Di Venuto carrying on where he left off last season with a splendid 103 before retiring. Skipper Will Smith with a solid 40 and Dale Benkenstein with 57 gave him good support.

Lancashire's opening attack of James Anderson and Sajid Mahmood looked rather innocuous and new West Indian signing Powell proved quite expensive. The other new signing Ashwell Prince from South Africa had a mixed day in the field, catching one but dropping two chances.

The fireworks came after tea when newcomer Ben Stokes hit a quickfire 70. Stokes was born in New Zealand, but brought up in Cumbria and starred recently for England Under 19s in the world cup. He looks a considerable asset to the Durham squad.

Durham's final score was 349-7 declared, with three of those being batsman 'retired out'. So a poor day for Lancashire was made even worse when left arm spinner Gary Keedy broke his collarbone late in the day. With skipper Glen Chapple and Tom Smith already injured Lancashire could have problems.

I did not attend on day two, but Lancashire stuggled to make 181 all out, the unlikely top scorer being James Anderson with 34 at number ten. The two counties respective websites had conflicting accounts of the match. Lancashire claimed a draw, presumably on account of no second innings having been played, but Durham quite rightly claimed a win by 169 runs, although the mathematicians among you will work out that this does not add up quite with the scores.

However that does not detract from the pleasure of a great day in the sun, only spoilt somewhat by the new huge red monstrosity which had been built next to the traditional old pavilion which quite literally has been put in the shade.