Durham v Surrey at Chester-le-Street

On a pitch helpful for seam bowlers Durham failed to make the best use of the conditions as the Surrey Lions compiled a winning 230 at the Riverside. It was some recompense for the Championship defeat earlier in the week. Durham's all round performance was not up to scratch and their National League form of 1999 continued. For Surrey this was win number two from two games in the League. Of the full quota of 45 overs Durham managed only 2 maidens and England prospect Steve Harmison went for 66 in his 9 overs. They batted too slowly and the fielding of both sides could have been better.

Surrey started slowly with the first boundary not coming until the 4th over by which time 13 runs had been posted. Betts and Killeen opened the attack for the home side but were unable to make an initial breakthrough against Butcher and Ali Brown who opened for the Lions. Brown eventually went in the 8th over when he had scored 19 and was just beginning to look menacing Katich taking a smart catch off the bowling of Killeen.

By the 10th over Surrey had advanced to 49 without further loss but the major point of interest occurred in Harmison's first over when he struck a fearful blow on the helmet of Mark Butcher. This necessitated the visit to the field of the Surrey physio and a delay of 5 mins before Butcher felt fit enough to continue. Butcher himself had managed to advance his own score to 27 before the Durham spinner Phillips bowled him.

Thorpe, who has not had a good week up in Durham, hung around for 6 overs but failed to score before he too went, bowled, courtesy of Phillips. The Surrey 100 came up in the 23rd over before the major batting contributor to the innings thus far; Alec Stewart went for 41, caught Lewis off Harmison. Of the 80 balls Stewart faced he hit 6 fours. Surrey's score was receiving a second substantial contribution from extras. In all 51 extras were contributed by Durham to the Surrey total of which 26 came off wides.

Of the other Surrey batsman Adam Hollioake made 17 and brother Ben top scored with 42. This was enough to get him the Man of the Match award. Ward managed only 3.

Durham's reply began under a typical grey canopy of cloud with Aussie Simon Katich opening a National League innings for the first time with Speight, the Durham keeper. They had advanced the reply to only 11 in the 6th over with Katich alone managing to find a boundary and Speight not scoring at all. The 7th over of the innings, bowled by Tudor, saw a veritable spurt with 16 runs after Speight found the ropes three times. However following this the innings once again slowed down as the light worsened substantially and very many of the crowd departed for warmer surroundings.

Cold hands could have explained some sloppy Surrey fielding with a couple of dropped catches but this did nothing to remove the feeling that Durham were scoring too slowly to bring the match to an exciting conclusion. Katich, Daley, Speight, Collingwood and Lewis all came and went and Ryan Robinson's score of 7 off 9 overs seemed to sum up the Durham torpor. It had taken 27 overs to get the innings into three figures. With 10 overs left 100 runs were still needed and the main interest seemed to develop from the arrival of around 20 students chanting for Yorkshire. Why this was the case is not clear but, in an effort to attract spectators, Durham had erected extra entertainments in the ground. It is a pity that the entertainment level was not a little higher in the middle but one sided limited overs games are often difficult to sustain for spectators.

The Durham tail thrashed to little effect - although Phillips managed 17 - and the innings closed at 164. Adam Hollioake had picked up 5 wickets for 29 but they will not come much easier than on this day.

Ahead of Tuesday's clash with Lancashire in the Quarter Final of the Benson and Hedges Cup Durham will have to improve considerably in technique and application whilst Surrey will be heartened for the short trip to Leeds.