Lancashire bowlers dig in but with little reward

Sep 5 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

ON Wednesday morning Lancashire gained a single bonus point for their labours against Durham at the Riverside. Yesterday’s cricket brought no such triumph for the Old Trafford side.

Indeed, Stuart Law’s players must be finding it difficult to remember when they last enjoyed a really successful day in the Championship. Yet although Lancashire’s bowlers did not earn their side any more points, their efforts were not completely pointless.

In the absence of further wickets to refresh tired limbs and bolster battered confidence, Law’s five-man seam attack and leg-spinner Francois du Plessis could enjoy a modicum of satisfaction that they had at least kept Durham’s batsmen honest by restricting them to 138 runs off the 55 overs that were possible on yet another rain-affected day.

Tom Smith’s figures of 19 overs for 29 runs accurately reflected the tight line and length he maintained, but Oliver Newby’s return to First Division cricket was marred by his tendency to bowl a four-ball every over as well as some penetrative deliveries; 15overs for 59 were fair to him too.

And if umpire Nigel Cowley had responded positively to Glen Chapple’s impassioned lbw appeal against Dale Benkenstein in the third over of the day, or if Paul Horton had clung on to a slip catch off the same bowler when Will Smith had reached a massively impressive 117, the visitors would have had a wicket to celebrate.

Instead, it was an afternoon of jubilee for Benkenstein and Smith, who took their partnership to an unbroken 184 on the easing surface, thus establishing a new record for any wicket by Durham’s batsmen against Lancashire, beating the 169 added by Paul Parker and Phil Bainbridge for the third wicket at Old Trafford in 1993.