Smith has to carry out running repairs

9:04am Thursday 4th September 2008

Durham v Lancashire (LV County Championship First day)

DURHAM were again indebted to Will Smith yesterday after self-inflicted wounds threatened to leave them on the back foot against Lancashire.

Smith was unbeaten on 59 out of 142 for three when rain ended play shortly after 2pm on the first day of the championship match at Riverside.

Smith has top scored in the first innings in three of Durham’s last four games and his contribution was again essential after both openers were run out.

As if this in itself did not have sufficient rarity value, Shivnarine Chanderpaul then departed for a duck, lbw when half forward to Tom Smith, the one bowler to impress.

D u r h a m were delighted when the cancellation of the Champions T r o p h y meant that the popular and normally prolific West Indian could stay until the end of the season.

They were fully confident that he would overcome his struggle to adapt to damp conditions, but he looked tentative in the ten balls he faced yesterday.

Dale Benkenstein then came in and clipped the first ball he faced through midwicket for four on his way to 21 out of an unbroken stand of 46.

Having lost the toss and been asked to bat, he would have been quite happy to see Mark Stoneman cruise to 47 as the Lancashire seamers offered nothing like the same threat as at Old Trafford in May.

Andrew Flintoff and James Anderson did the d a m a g e there, and w h i l e G l e n Chapple and Dom i n i c Cork have since rec o v e r e d from inj u r y Sajid Mahmood has succumbed.

Cork, angry that Lancashire are not renewing his contract, is happy to keep putting himself in the shop window and Durham are one of the clubs said to be interested in the 37-year-old allrounder.

He bowled the second over yesterday, and while he could have had Stoneman out, the over cost 19 runs.

The young left-hander edged two fours just wide of the wicketkeeper and drove two more through the off-side.

But in Cork’s second over Michael Di Venuto hit the ball straight at Stoneman and was halfway down the pitch as the ball struck his partner and ricocheted towards extra cover.

Di Venuto might have expected Stoneman to do a more nimble job of getting out of the way, but in over-committing himself the Tasmanian was at least slightly at fault, unlike his four run-outs in early season.

He was left stranded by Steven Croft’s throw, and his four visits to the crease since his one-day century at Worcester have yielded a total of four runs.

Lancashire left out left-arm spinner Gary Keedy and opted for an all-seam attack featuring Oliver Newby, who took over from the out-of-sorts Chapple and conceded 13 off his first over.

Stoneman combined punched straight drives with fierce pulls and had just hit his ninth four when he drove Newby to mid-off, where Chapple parried the ball.

Stoneman set off to go back for a second run and was rightly sent back by Smith, only to be beaten by a direct hit from Cork, who had come across from mid-on.

It was a disappointing end to a very promising innings, but Smith maintained his composure and a handsome drive off Chapple took him to 50 off 112 balls.

SCOREBOARD

Durham v Lancashire At Riverside

Lancashire Won Toss

Durham First Innings Close

M J Di Venuto run out ......................... 2

M D Stoneman run out .......................47

W R Smith not out ...............................59

S Chanderpaul lbw b Smith ................ 0

D M Benkenstein not out ....................21

Extras (b5 lb4 nb4 pens 0) ..........13

Total 3 wkts (40 overs)............142

Fall: 1-23 2-92 3-96

To Bat: B W Harmison, P Mustard, P J Wiseman, L E Plunkett, C D Thorp, M Davies.

Bowling: Chapple 12-3-41-0. Cork 9-3-35-0.

Smith 8-2-14-1. Newby 7-2-29-0. Croft 4-1- 14-0.