Durham get things wrong at the Riverside

 Posted by Tony Hutton

The current round of County Championship games, sandwiched as they are in between the current plethora of T20 cricket, produced some fascinating results. A majority of the games were won by the teams batting last, one obvious exception being Nottinghamshire's innings victory over Leicestershire. So in most cases a close contest with both teams well in contention until the last afternoon.

Sadly the game where it all went wrong was the one at Riverside, where we spent the first three days watching Durham play Worcestershire. Durham did not seem to have learned from the recent game at Worcester where the home side batted throughout the last day losing only one wicket in a drawn match, after Ben Stokes' remarkable innings earlier in the game. The home side's tactics in batting on, and on, during day two here were hard to fathom.

Durham of course were weakened by the absence of Lees, Potts and Stokes all on England duty, as well as missing their prolific scorer Sean Dickson through injury. Keegan Petersen, the South African batsman has returned home and several second team players were also injured, which meant that Durham engaged the services of New Zealand batsman Ravi Ravindra. He is a member of the touring squad but apparently not in the reckoning for Test Match selection. In addition they brought in home grown product Jonathan Bushnell for his first class debut, after scoring well in the second eleven.

Worcestershire were also without two regulars in opening bat Ed Pollock and all rounder Joe Leach. They also gave a first team debut to Lancastrian opening bat Taylor Cornall who has done well with the seconds since joining from Leeds/Bradford University. Durham won the toss and batted. After Jones was caught behind early on the rest of day one was dominated by a partnership between Ravindra and skipper Borthwick. The New Zealander, a left hander, looked in confident mood and Borthwick, after a slow start, soon got in on the act.

Borthwick and Ravindra, not out at lunch.

The pair added 230 for the second wicket at over four an over against the four man seam attack of Morris, Gibbon (from Cheshire), Pennington and Barnard. The bowling completed by slow left armer Baker later in the day. Ravindra went to his century in mid afternoon and Borthwick looked likely to follow him until he unwisely attempted to sweep Baker on 96 and fell lbw. The distraught batsman left the field with bat clutched in front of his face realising he had missed out on a century once again.

Ravindra reaches his century.

Bedingham, who has been out of sorts, did not stay long and Bushnell came in with the score on 271-3. He played himself in cautiously but by the end of the day he had not only completed his half century, and added a century partnership with Ravindra who was 178 not out by the close when Durham  were 375-3.  Unfortunately Bushnell was out for 66 soon after the score had passed the 400 mark on Monday morning. However Ravindra passed the 200 mark before being caught behind off the persevering Gibbon, who also quickly disposed of Eckersley and Trevaskis.

The distraught Borthwick leaves the stage for 96.

So with the score on 429-7, some members of the rather thin crowd, braving the strong westerly breeze and overhead cloud, thought that the declaration might come at 450. Not so, surely 500 would be enough, not so. The two new batsmen Ben Raine and Paul Coughlin took full advantage of the obviously disheartened Worcestershire side. They matched each other run for run, completing their fifties, then both passing their previous best first class scores (Raine 82, Coughlin 90) the total by now well past 600 and still no sign of a declaration.

The scoreboard tells the story.

Two happy batsmen, Coughlin and Raine both with maiden centuries.

Both men completed their maiden first class centuries in the same over to well deserved celebrations, closely followed by the long delayed declaration on 642-7 at the tea interval on day two. In the process the two batsman had created a new eight wicket partnership record for Durham of 213.  Four of the unhappy Worcestershire bowlers had passed the century mark and Morris was only three short. One can only question Borthwick's tactics in batting the visitors out of the game, obviously in the hope of being able to bowl them out twice.

Paul Coughlin celebrates.

Initially, when Rushworth produced a trademark dismissal of debutant Cornall with the second ball of the Worcestershire innings, by removing one of his stumps, this distant prospect looked a possibility. However Libby, Azhar Ali and the in form Haynes showed determination to take Worcester to 140-3 at the end of the second day. Day three produced better weather, with the strong winds having dropped, but not much hope for the home side when Haynes making 68, followed by an almost 200 partnership between Worcester's stubborn captain Brett D'Oliveira and Ed Barnard, put all thoughts of an easy victory out of the window.

D'Oliviera, like his opposition captain, was visibly annoyed when given out lbw on exactly one hundred, but he had done his job well taking his side beyond 400. Barnard remained 116 not out at the close, by which time we were on our way home, quite pleased we had not decided to stay for day four. 

This enabled us to listen to Test Match Special on the car radio to take in Jonny Bairstow's remarkable innings at Trent Bridge which saw England to an amazing victory over New Zealand.

For the record on day four Worcester batted on to make 550 all out and Durham batted a second time to make 102 for no wicket by ten to five when they declared. Match drawn. I assume even less people were there on the last day and hopefully Borthwick, and presumably his coaching staff, may have learned the lesson that the game should be played to win not just for a draw.