I have spent the last two days at The Riverside but with Tony having given an account of Sunday's and yesterday's play I will concentrate on today's proceedings, another day of pleasant temperatures and from my native county's point of view an excellent day's cricket. Weighell*, Carse and McCarthy are not yet household names but together with the evergreen Onions they have made up Durham's pace attack for this match. They appear to have jumped a queue for a vacancy caused by that rarest of events, an injury to Rushworth, a queue in which Arshad, Harrison and Coughlin might have appeared to be nearer the front. Weighell impressed yesterday but today it was Dublin born Barry McCarthy who came to the fore with five of the last six Lancashire wickets to fall, the other a run out. Five wickets which came in a rush either side of lunch to leave Lancashire 85 short of Durham's first innings' total.
I spent today in the company of our Shildon Correspondent who had kindly picked me up from Durham station where despite horses on the line at Retford my train was only slightly delayed, and Neil Duckworth, nephew of Lancashire and England keeper, George. In the luncheon interval I popped into the second hand bookshop in the media centre where due to a misfiling Harry Pearson's Slipless in Settle was filed next to Call the Midwife. I looked in vain for a copy of Bill Bowes' autobiography Express Deliveries.
Stoneman and Jennings, both of whom have had runs on the board this season, set about Lancashire's attack with a vigour which set the tone for the afternoon as Durham finished the day on 239 off 60 overs, a lead of 324, Before the close 'Badger' Borthwick became only the third Durham batsman to score two centuries in a championship match, Paul Collingwood in 2005 and Keaton Jennings last month being the other two. Thus for the third time this season Durham find themselves in a winning position but as on the other occasions, one likely to be forestalled by rain. The forecast for tomorrow is not a complete washout but it looks as though there will be enough interruptions in play to secure Lancashire a draw.
In the other seven matches going on, and The Guardian could not spare a reporter to cover any of them, the most intriguing situations are at Trent Bridge where Notts have made a calamitous start to chasing 227 against The Bears, and at Bristol where Glos will hope their last two wickets can add a few more to their lead of 234 over Glamorgan. The rest look like draws, which are the flavour of the month possibly as the result of the change in regulations relating to the toss. I have yet to speak to anybody that does not see a link between this change and the frequency of high scores in championship matches. The weather forecast would not appear to rule out all eight matches ending in draws.
*The announcer at The Riverside pronounces this Whale, my preference is Wheel.
Durham slips in waiting
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