A warm sunny day in March at Riverside

Posted by Tony Hutton

As a regular visitor to the Riverside ground at Chester-le-Street since Durham became a first class county, I have never before considered using a headline like this. Early season games in the past, either in April and May have often been a real effort of endurance, however many layers of clothing have been involved. However I am delighted to report that yesterday provided a warm enough day to remove outer garments and even the sun cream made an appearance during the early afternoon.

This is a library picture, but the sunshine and blue sky were still there yesterday. Pleased to say that the blue seats, which never really fitted in have been removed, no doubt with replacements imminent.

This of course was day three of the pre-season game between the Durham county side and Durham University where John Winn has already reported on the first day. Needless to say it was of course a very one sided contest with the University facing a real mountain to climb with 500 runs required in their second innings, when the county finally declared after some valuable batting practise.

After Will Smith's century on day one, it was the turn of South African Gareth Harte to reach three figures, although he had to work hard for it against a varied University attack which included no less than three slow left arm bowlers as well as a left arm seamer in Jack Campbell who has played for Durham seconds in the past. He was rather upstaged by wicket keeper Stuart Poynter, now of course an Irish international Test player, who made a rapid innings of 80 in contrast to Harte's much more measured progress.

However Poynter was out when Harte was on 99 after a partnership of 118. At this point the two workmen on the 'cherry picker' in front of the old scoreboard seemed oblivious to the drama unfolding behind their backs and managed to park their machine right in front of Harte's score. Obviously placing the large advertising sign at the top of the board was far more important.
Notwithstanding Harte completed a hard earned century just before the lunch interval when Durham declared.

                                                         Gareth Harte

When play re-started, with the spectators basking in the sunshine, you needed to pay attention straight away as Chris Rushworth removed Bedford's off stump with the first ball of the University's second innings .The luckless opener suffered the indignity of a 'pair' having been caught and bowled for nought in the first innings also by Rushworth. The other opener Dewes also went quickly caught behind by Poynter off Rimmington for six and the University were 8-2 in the second over.

This brought about the appearance of the inevitable drinks man onto the field at such an early stage, which together with the endless practice balls before any bowler starts a spell all helps to slow down the already pedestrian over rate. Umpires do seem unwilling to take action to speed things up, but I suppose this has been going on for so long now it has just become normal practise.

Not to worry as skipper Graves (no relation presumably) and Benjamin proceeded to make a welcome recovery after Powe and Scott had also gone rather cheaply to make it 48-4. These two put on a partnership of 75 with Graves making an accomplished sixty six before becoming yet another Poynter victim (he took nine catches during the match, as well as scoring 80 runs).We departed at the tea interval when the cold breeze had begun to strengthen and the innings began to fall apart with three quick wickets before tailenders Sidwell (42 not out) and Xavier Owen (24) added some respectability to proceedings by taking the score just beyond 200.

So Durham as expected were easy winners by a margin of 296 runs. In view of all the other results yesterday, no doubt the debate whether these games should continue to be ranked as first class matches will no doubt continue. Of course there is a further nonsensical item in that the first two rounds of such matches are currently first class but the third round of games are not! Only the ECB could write such scripts.

Finally and rather ironically of course the champion county game with MCC being played in Dubai was washed out by rain on the final day. This is obviously a rare event but perhaps a signal that this showpiece game should be restored to Lord's at whatever date fits into the crowded calender for the benefit of the supporters of whoever the champion county should prove to be. Sadly common sense does not seem to be part of the equation when cricket administrators are concerned.