[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

County Championship, Group One

vs Durham

Day One

Morning: Pears won the toss and put Durham in to bat on a misty, moisty May morning with no play across the majority of the country. As has often been the case with these decisions recently, one early breakthrough - that of Will Young being dismissed LBW for 5 by Joe Leach - didn't trigger a general clatter of wickets, despite the ball beating the bat and whizzing past the stumps with low bounce numerous times. Charlie Morris, who asked the most questions of the batsmen in the first hour, was rewarded shortly before noon when Scott Borthwick edged low to third slip for 4; however, new man David Bedingham and opener Alex Lees kept the Worcs attack at bay until lunch, undoubtedly the happier of the sides on 80-2.

Afternoon: The third wicket Worcestershire would have wanted in the morning came instead in the opening stages of the afternoon, and it was a huge scalp as the country's leading run-scorer, Bedingham, edged Morris low to first slip for 24. Durham continued to battle on a pitch that was causing them trouble, with Lees making his half-century soon after, but when a full and fierce delivery smashed into Jack Burnham's front pad and sent him packing LBW for 23, Josh Tongue had arrived at the party. With the first delivery of his very next over the paceman flicked Ned Eckersley's hip and wheeled away in celebration for a catch behind that wasn't; perhaps piqued by that embarrassment, he then sent the following ball crashing from Eckersley's elbow onto the stumps for a duck. Ed Barnard got in on the action when he coaxed a little extra bounce from a ball that surprised Stuart Poynter, who lofted a simple edge to first slip for 1, and though Lees counter-attacked in response with some assistance from Brydon Carse, the opener came undone in the session's final over when he attempted to cut Joe Leach and nicked into the keeper's gloves for an agonising 99. Five wickets turned Durham's morning into Worcestershire's afternoon, and at 183-7 the pendulum had swung firmly in favour of the Pears overall.

Evening: With Durham still two runs short of a bonus point, Tongue raised hopes of a quick demolition of the tail when he sent Ben Raine's leg stump cartwheeling out of the ground for 8 with a straight ball that the batsman simply shuffled out the way of as he attempted a flick off the hip. But Carse and Mark Wood were tenacious in their resistance, and held on until the second new ball when Tongue demolished Wood's middle stump for 12; the home side closed in on a second bonus point, but there was just no stopping Tongue as he had Chris Rushworth chop on for 2, bowling Durham out for 246 and completing his first five-fer in the two years since he ploughed through the same opposition in May 2019. With the floodlights on and the skies gloomy, Worcestershire were then fortunately spared a trial by fire as the umpires called bad light after just three overs of the reply, leaving the visitors 6-0 at close of play. The forecast for Friday suggests cloud cover but no rain, and there's still every chance that Durham may turn 246 into a good score with some aggressive bowling; this was Worcestershire's day, but with the potential for many a twist and turn to come.