Breese drives Durham to amazing victory

By Jon Steer
May 15 2004

165 not out from Gareth Breese and 88 from Nicky Peng led a Durham fightback as we reached the target of 451 with one wicket to spare. At 95-5 even the most optimistic of supporter would have written us off but excellent batting throughout the lower order gave us our first win of the season.

With a target of 451 in just over four sessions set by Somerset with their declaration yesterday there was just a glimmer of hope for Durham. Surely with the strength of out batting line-up it was a possibility...

Then the typical upper order failures left us reeling at 95-5 before Nicky Peng added some respectability taking us through to 175-5 at close of play yesterday. When Peng fell for 88 it was left to Jamaican all rounder Gareth Breese to score the runs. And score he did, finishing on 165 not out having inspired the other lower order batsmen to all add useful scores and make the target a possibility.

With last man Davies at the other end it was Breese who hit the winning runs with a four off the bowling of Richard Johnson. What makes the performances all the more impressive was the fact that they were against a test-level attack with Caddick, Johnson and McLaen bowling over 100 overs between them.

Hopefully this performance will give the players some much needed confidence, while it won't have done Colly's chance of a test place a lot of good it could provide Nicky Peng with the platform to produce the kind of innings we know he is capable of on a more regular basis...