Durham Day 1 Johnno sings

First 5-fer!!
By Grockle
April 24 2003

First session of 2003 and Johnno makes it his with five wickets. But will we get through them and put ourselves in a position before the weather turns? Still in the balance then!

v DURHAM CC2 @ Taunton 23 April 2003

DAY ONE

DAY TWO

DAY THREE

DAY FOUR

First day at the County Ground and the sun is out, although the chances of four days seems a bit slim according to the weathermen.  After the narrow defeat at Bristol and the batting collapse in the first innings, it was probably lucky that the visitors won the toss and decided to go in first.

The team?  No real surprises.  Ian Blackwell hasn't recovered from his split webbing and although he's about and his hand isn't strapped up, we have gone with Keith Dutch in the spin department.  The rest of the side is as at Bristol with Simon Francis keeping his place and Keith Parsons being named as 12th man.

We open with Nixon McLean and Richard Johnson at the River and Pavilion ends respectively and a lively opening it is.  Nixon seems to be able to get Caddick-like bounce at Taunton and that can't be a bad thing although I think he likes coming down the hill rather than bowling up it.  The crowd is a bit sparse for a good day in the Easter holidays but it's a nice day for watching, a bit of wind but a warm sun.

Johnno gets first blood early as he has Gough caught behind and well within the first hour, with just over 10 overs gone in fact, Durham are 40 for 2 when Pratt is LBW to the swarthy one.  McLean only bowled 4 overs before Francis replaces him and when he comes back with 15 overs gone he has changed ends and looks a much more difficult prospect.  The score is 61 for 2 and Wells doesn't stay much longer, snicking a Nixon ball to Turner with 67 on the board.  In comes Peng to a soon to be traditional Taunton welcome.  The West Indian puts the first one around his ears and the second one pings off his helmet as he takes avoiding action. 

It all becomes a bit flat then.  Lewis is moving towards 50 and Durham are not exactly belting along but they are accumulating.  Aaron Laraman takes over at the River end with 26 overs gone but it all looks a bit easy and the fair weather supporters who are here every season and never satisfied are off on one with less than a home session of the season gone.  "Who's this Laraman?"   "Why isn't Parsons playing?"  "Why did we get rid of Trego and kept Cox?" (answers on an e-mail to the messageboard).  The doldrums end when Johnson is brought back. 

First Peng goes at 27.4 caught behind to Johnson and although they reach 100 for 4 two overs later, Danny Law doesn't stay long as he 'snicks' one to Turner (sounded like cloth to me.....and to him), he isn't happy but we go into lunch at 107 for 5 with Johnson having 4 to his name and Lewis reaching 50 just before the break off 83 balls with 9 fours.

It's not exactly racing along, but we are in a better position than they are going into the second spell.  With the weather predicting flood and fire, we need them out and we need to get on our way to a big first innings lead.  Laraman is on at the River end - off we go then!  Johnson joins in at the Pavilion and when Pratt shoulders arms on 23, with his side at 134 for 5, it becomes 134 for 6 and Johnno has his 5-fer for 54!   It's looking good but although Aaron Laraman sends down lots of balls too good fcor Phillips to get an edge to, Lewis continues to frustrate but can't get Johnson off the square.

From 37 overs to 44 overs Durham struggle to add 13 under some tight bowling.   Finally, Phillips manages to get to one of Laraman's deliveries and leaves caught!   Burnsy brings back McLean to provide what we've missed for quite a while - TAILENDER BOUNCER TIME!!  Kileen gets a few in the 45th but Lewis is the one we want and just after the 150 comes up, Trescothick drops the batsman in the slips.  It takes another change of bowling for us to break into the soft underbelly.  Francis replaces Laraman and finally has Lewis caught for a very valuable 78.  180 for 8 becomes 184 for 9 when Frankie strikes again getting Kileen caught by Aaron Laraman and he finishes the innings by dismissing Harmison for zilch courtesy of Bryant.  Earned his place again then!

The bowling was good.  Laraman and Francis asked questions and were tight.   They didn't look massively dangerous but the Durham boys couldn't get them away.   McLean kept the batters jittery and worked in short spells in partnership with the quality man - Johnson.  This is probably the way to use the attack.  Keep one end tight - something we didn't do last year - and use the danger men at the other end in short sharp spells to keep them fresh.  This is not the best line-up we'll play against this year and there were quiet spells today when the opposition didn't look in trouble.  But we now have some variation and that kept the momentum going.  We also have our five-fer boys now.  McLean got lots of bounce and Johnson is just so damn deceptive.  He looks lazy, you shoulder arms and the stumps go walkabout!!

Bowler v Srinath from the Old Pavilion was the first fight of the second phase.   Peter B off the mark with a 2 from the first ball.  Srinath doesn't look anything like as dangerous as he used to be but both openers give him his due level of respect.  Trescothick is faced by four slips and doesn't get off the mark until the fourth over against Harmison.  Then again it is with a straight drive for four, follwed by a more aggressive drive next ball to the same boundary.  In fact he takes his first 24 off just 6 balls over 5 overs.  We are moving towards 50 without loss for the first time in what seems quite a while.  Trescothick does not seem too confident but he is more patient than he used to be and builds the innings.

In fact we reach the 90's before we lose a wicket and Banger has stretched his batting muscles and is looking good.  Not good enough though because he is the first to go for 60 to Wells.  More promising though!  But the problem has not been sorted out completely because now we have the platform, we start to throw it away!  With the overs left, we could be almost 150 by the end of the day, it should not be at the cost of important wickets.  Burns comes in at number 3....WHY?  Why aren't Cox and Bryant fighting for the number three spot?  The captain is a good man to come in aas the innings is starting to develop - he has a middle order batsman's psyche but with better technique.  He isn't a number 3!  It is even more of a problem when Bowler goes for a slow 25 with the score on 100!  Now we have the wrong number 3 and a new batsman trying to establish himself.  Cox arrives, missed his first delivery and departs - LBW (hmm heard this before) and we are 100 for 3.  Somerset are losing the plot again and Srinath and Wells have taken the initiative away from out top five - and they aren't the first to do this!

Burns now should shut up shop with Bryant and wait for tomorrow.  The main requirement is to conserve wickets to keep Durham under the cosh.  Burns LBW to Wells for 17 with the score on 125 stops this possibility and when Wells also bowls Francis, the nightwatchman, two balls later we are clearly in dire need of seeing the end of this session.  Luckily Bryant is joined by the sensible Rob Turner and they see out the attack to finish on 125 for 5.  We don't end the day in a great position but in need of the middle and tail end to pull us back into the driving seat again tomorrow when the weather may have changed and the ball may be doing all kinds of things....it's depressingly similar to sessions we have seen recently.

It isn't that we have lost all the initiative.  It is rather that we had them by the sphericals and we have allowed them to see light at the end of the very dark tunnel because we cannot impose ourselves on a game when we are required to bat.  With 91 on the board, we lose 4 wickets for 35 runs - not quite 6 for 36 but not acceptable!   VINCE WELLS finishes with 3 for 27 off 9 overs - we can't afford to allow figures like these if we expect to be promoted.  Taunton is our fortress, a batting paradise.   We have shown that we can move the ball about and scare sides on it.   Unfortunately we haven't shown that we can work on it as a batting track.   Superior batting sides will make it hard for us and we have to show them that we are at least their equals on our own surface.  What is the point os the bowling attack gaining us the advantage if we throw it away everytime we take to the wicket?   We should have been looking at a first session lead of about 150-ish but we are now struggling to pass the opposition's total in a game that may be less than 3 days in length - given the weather report.  Supporters aren't happy and although I had to laugh at the way some regular attendees had already written off the season, we need a side that is going to be consistent if this year is not to offer more disappointment than last!!

Sort out this top five situation please - we need eleven batsmen to win this league.   We can't do it with six I'm afraid!

If you want to see what the Durham site had to say about the day then click HERE