Cricket: Durham lose direction

Somerset 398-5 v Durham

IN THE absence of a game this September between the county champions and the Sheffield Shield winners, a competition could be staged between the wooden spooners of each country. If there was, England's honour would almost certainly be upheld against the likes of Tasmania, Jammu and Kashmir, and the Windward Islands, by the new county of Durham.

To jump over Glamorgan, and avoid bottom place, Durham have to win at least one of their last two games. But by bowling first, and short and wide, against Somerset yesterday, on an overtly damp pitch, they did not go the best way about it.

As in their season as a whole, Durham performed fitfully well yesterday - all right, they were tidy in the hour after tea - without being consistently first-class. Their main problem is their lack of a penetrative bowler since Simon Brown went off the boil, after being the country's leading wicket-taker at one stage. Now they rely on Paul Parker, and he doesn't bowl, and Phil Bainbridge, who took the second new ball.

Somerset were launched on their highest total of the season when Ian Botham's opening spell did not go according to plan. He posted four slips and a gulley, only to find his bowling vandalised by Mark Lathwell, much as his Mercedes had been the night before.

A little history was made, after Lathwell had hooked six and four over the keeper's head, when Botham, somewhat heatedly, posted a long-stop for a catch. But he was soon gone, after 11 overs for 44, with a recurrence of his right shoulder injury.

Lathwell, at 20, has to be far too young for England's A team: in naming their opening batsman, the selectors must have meant Larkins. They are not dissimilar in their panache. Lathwell's 50 was his 11th of the season, against one century, before he square-drove to James Daley on his debut at cover.

Richard Harden gave Andy Hayhurst a start of 44 and was so dashing that he beat him to a hundred. Only four Somerset centuries had been hit all Championship season before their two. Perhaps Durham should be allowed an overseas bowler and a batsman, like Tasmania when they entered the Sheffield Shield.