One of Durham's most memorable matches

Posted by Tony Hutton

Still busy trawling through my extensive 2009 photo archive, I came across one of Durham's most memorable matches in September of that year. They were on the verge of winning the county championship for the second successive season and were playing a strong looking Nottinghamshire side at the Riverside.

First century partnership of day one.

I was there on day one to see a wonderful opening partnership between Australian Michael Di Venuto and Scotsman Kyle Coetzer. Together they put on 314 for the first wicket, which was just twenty runs short of the all time Durham first wicket partnership of 334 put on by Stewart Hutton and Mike Roseberry against Oxford University in 1996. Notts were handicapped by the loss of Charlie Shreck, their opening bowler, due to injury after only seven overs and also had to change their wicket keeper Chris Read when he dislocated his thumb. Bilal Shafayat taking over the role.

Di Venuto led the way in a season when he amassed 1654 runs at an average of 78.76. He went to his hundred in mid-afternoon with 16 fours and was followed by Koetzer who reached the century mark about an hour and a quarter later, having hit 20 fours. The partnership was finally broken after tea when Koetzer was run out by Mark Ealham for 107. Will Smith joined Di Venuto who finished the day on 219 not out from a total of 377-1. Not a bad day's work for the home side.

Tea time on day one.

The two batsmen shake hands at tea time.

Di Venuto was out without adding to his score on the morning of day two and when Will Smith followed shortly afterwards, Notts may have thought they were slightly back in the game with a score 382-3. However, their hopes were dashed by the new partnership of West Indian Shivnarine Chanderpaul and South African Dale Benkenstein who both became centurions during a partnership of 203. Durham eventually declared on  648-5 and then reduced Notts to 65-2 by the close of day two. Samit Patel bowled 60 overs during the Durham innings and ended with probably his worst ever figures of 1-206.

Patel and Alex Hales also did well with the bat after Mark Davies had taken two early wickets for Durham. Several players made either forties or fifties but nobody could match the four Durham centurions. Steve Harmison could not make a breakthrough with the ball in the Notts first innings and it was left to Liam Plunkett coming on as third change to finish them off with 6-85. Notts finally all out for 384 but not before Mark Ealham and Darren Pattinson had put on a century partnership for the ninth wicket. Pattinson of course was the English born Australian who had made a surprise appearance for England in 2008.

Notts faced an impossible task when they followed on and only Alex Hales with 78 provided much opposition. Harmison came good with a late burst of three wickets and there were another three for Plunkett. Notts were dismissed for 212 and lost the match by an innings and 52 runs. Durham were well on their way to winning the championship, which now seems a distant memory for today's very different side. Mark Wood's success with England presumably means that Durham will see little of him in the coming season but they have a group of very promising young players who hopefully will develop under the captaincy again of Australian Cameron Bancroft.

Coetzer on the left and Di Venuto on the right.

Briefly back to the two opening batsmen. Where are they now? Well Di Venuto is coaching at Surrey and Coetzer is the long serving captain of Scotland's international cricket side who received the M.B.E. last year for services to Scottish cricket.