A couple of nights in Durham City led to two very interesting days of cricket in the North East when virtually the whole of the cricket programme in the rest of the country was washed out. As John Winn has already reported day one of the Durham v Northamptonshire game continued in sunshine well into the evening session. Having seen Durham's early batting collapse at Worcester and then at home to both Gloucester and Derbyshire it was no surprise to see it happen again this time at the hands of yet another Yorkshire reject Ben Sanderson, who removed the top three in no time at all.
We had hoped that the eventual victory over Derbyshire last week in such dramatic circumstances, after Alex Lee's return to form with 63 and 107 not out, might have meant that they had turned the corner but it seemed back to square one on the first morning yet again. However help was at hand this time in the workmanlike partnership between Ben Raine and Brydon Carse. Slow going indeed but a most valuable one. Tuesday morning (day two) dawned wet, windy and miserable and the covers were still on as we arrived at the ground.
To our surprise just before eleven the covers were removed very rapidly and the game started on time admittedly in rather adverse conditions. The hard core of Durham members were packed tightly into the confines of the lounge area of the Paul Collingwood stand. This due to the fact that the usual members' lounge in the spacious Long Room was being given a makeover in preparation for the forthcoming World Cup games at Riverside. Food and drink was readily available but the view of the action behind glass was rather limited unless you got there early enough to be on the front row.
The grumblers were out in force and with good reason. With the weather as cold as it was the Long Room would have been an ideal vantage point for many and most of the members were upset about it's temporary closure for the whole of this game. Large gangs of workmen were also employed putting up huge sponsors' flags for the World Cup on every lamp post in the nearby streets.
The long suffering members do have to put up with an awful lot in this day and age. We tried sitting outside for a while as much out of the wind as was possible, but not for too long although the stand between Raine and Carse continued.The admirable Ben Raine has never scored a first class century, although he did get one in a T20 game for Leicester, and had reached 82 before he was hit on the pad by Ben Hutton, causing him to fall over and be given out lbw at the same time. The partnership had put on 154 runs which was a record for the Durham eighth wicket passing that of Plunkett and Mustard of 147 against Yorkshire ten years ago.
Durham were eventually all out for 253, with Brydon Carse 77 not out in four hours, and Sanderson's early figures of three for not many had stretched to four for 55. Curran and Vasconcelos started the Northant's reply confidently and Rushworth was not able to make the early breakthrough he has achieved several times already this season. By lunchtime we had managed to keep warm by watching the live streaming of the game on the big screen in the Sticky Wicket pub. Not really to be recommended so we upped sticks and set off for Burnopfield where Durham seconds had started a game with Warwickshire that morning.
Here we knew we could sit in the car in comfort on the banking surrounding this admirable bowl like ground. About an hour's play had been lost during the morning but Warwickshire were batting and another Yorkshire exile, Will Rhodes soon completed his fifty and continued to monopolise the scoring in partnership with Robert Yates, who was bowled by Harding for a modest 18 out of an opening partnership of 111. Soon afterwards Rhodes went to his century before being bowled by young left arm spinner Faizan Hussain, from Marton cricket club.
Hussain, bowling a good length, took two further wickets before we left but a strong Warwickshire side piled on the runs for the rest of the day to finally declared on a total of 348-7. Rhodes by the way had scored another century the day before at Jesmond in a second eleven trophy game. Despite Durham losing that one they have qualified for the trophy semi-finals where they will play Somerset away next Friday. They could possibly play Yorkshire in the final the following week.
No comments:
Post a Comment