Will Colly avoid the brolly?

posted by John Winn

Two days in lovely sunshine at The Riverside can lull you into thinking that summer and the cricket season will go on for ever but Friday's forecast for heavy rain has been in spectators' and players' minds since Tuesday as it would seem to rule out any prospect of play tomorrow and thus Durham must do the business of finishing off Sussex today. If as seems likely Durham skipper Paul Collingwood has cast his mind back to April when he left Yorkshire all day to make over 300 and Joe Root made his calculations obsolete the decision when to declare will not be an easy one. On the evidence of their batting yesterday Sussex would appear to have no rivals to the England opener, indeed some of the tail batted more like Joe Pasqulae than Joe Root. Both sides have come into this match understrength: the visitors clearly short of batting and Durham missing three of the pace attack that played at Scarborough a week ago. So far Durham's second string bowlers have done better than the Sussex stand in batsmen. Coach Mark 'Smokey' Robinson has cleared worked no miracles with the batting skills of his last three batsmen who all collected noughts, leaving skipper and compulsive bail remover Ben Brown 21 not out.

There was a particularly good turn out of retired teachers in block 11 on Tuesday, St Gove's Day, when we think of pupils returning to school after the summer break and rejoice that they will have to manage without us. The day followed the template of virtually every first day in championship matches at Chester le Street this season. In short Durham win the toss, bat and are bowled out for about 250 and by close of play the opposition have lost wickets in reply. Stumps on Tuesday: Durham 245, Sussex 60 for 3.

By taking a different bus from Durham yesterday I missed only twenty minutes of play, enough time for Sussex to lose opener Wells to the Mustard and Onions combination and there after the visitors slid downhill to be all out shortly after noon with a deficit of 133. Three wickets for Claydon, recalled from a loan spell at Kent but set to return to Canterbury at the end of the season on a two year contract and three for 'Benny' Arshad, who with both bat and ball has shown signs that he may well prove an asset next season and beyond.

Jennings and Stoneman began brightly and indeed there was a levity about the proceedings that started us thinking that we might see a quick 200, followed by a declaration and a few Sussex wickets fall, all before we had to dash home for 'The One Show'. This silly idea was quickly punctured by the regular fall of wickets until at 90 for 5, Durham's two most seasoned campaigners found themselves at the crease and there was a clear change of tactics. Admiral Collingwood steadied his ship with help from the first mate Mustard and at stumps with help from 'Benny' they had stretched the lead to 345 with four second innings wickets left. There were some who felt Collingwood should have taken the chance to knock a couple of Sussex wickets over last night but we should perhaps remember two things. Firstly there are two days left and secondly weather forecasts have been wrong. I wonder if the Durham skipper dreamt of Joe Root last night.