'Cook keeps faith with his batsmen'

posted by John Winn

This headline in 'The Journal' yesterday confirmed that despite the high scoring of Jennings and Singh in the second eleven game at Darlington earlier in the week Durham would stick with the batting line up which had gained only nine batting points in ten championship matches this season. A more detailed reading of the article suggested that this policy was more attributable to new captain Paul Collingwood rather than coach Geoff Cook.

'A failed train' just outside Durham station delayed my arrival at The Riverside so that the game had been in progress fifteen minutes when I got my first view of the scoreboard showing that Smith had already departed for a duck and that Middlesex, having won the toss, had, to nobody's surprise, asked Durham to bat and with the assistance of England paceman Steve Finn were turning the screw on the struggling batsmen.

Muchall, whose form has been probably the most wretched was showing some steadiness with Stoneman when he was run out via a deflection from bowler Murtagh's foot. Enter Stokes who, third ball, played a shot of abject tameness to Morgan at cover. 18 for 3  was soon 24 for 4 and so on, as a decent Riverside crowd with a good contingent of Middlesex support saw a struggling Durham 61 for 6 at lunch.

Durham had been forced to make one change with Richardson in for the injured Mustard. Richardson who played five championship innings last season, in two of which he reached 50, had been among the centurions at Feethams against Ireland A and for those of us who have been urging Durham to make changes there was a measure of satisfaction when he was last out with a top score of 22. Some satisfaction but not enough to compensate for a total of 102.

When Midddlesex began their reply Rodgers immediately made it look a different game. As the sun shone the Australian dominated the opening stand with his fellow Sydneysider Robson. The stand was broken when Robson was trapped lbw by Thorpe but when I left at tea Middlesex were 63 for 1, past half way in their pursuit of Durham's total.

After tea, and not for the first time this season, Durham's bowlers dragged them back into the game. Stokes made up for his dismal morning duck with the wickets of Denly, Morgan and Simpson and when with his only ball of the day Borthwick removed Rayner, stumps were pulled with Middlesex 42 ahead with 3 wickets left. Should their batsmen raise that to something anywhere near three figures this morning then the pressure will be back on Durham's batsmen. If they fail again then selection for the attractive game on Wednesday with Australia A will be very interesting. Does the Cook/Collingwood team give them yet another chance to rediscover form or does it see how second eleven batters will perform against an attack much stronger than that of Ireland A?