Durham v Essex
Vitality County Championship
Seat Unique Riverside, Chester-le-Street
Friday 26 – Monday 29 April 2024, 11am start
Team News:
Durham: Alex Lees, Scott Borthwick*, Colin Ackermann, David Bedingham, Ollie Robinson+, Graham Clark, Brydon Carse, Paul Coughlin, Ben Raine, Matthew Potts, Callum Parkinson.
Essex: Dean Elgar, Feroze Khushi, Nick Browne, Jordan Cox, Matt Critchley, Noah Thain, Harry Duke+, Simon Harmer, Shane Snater, Sam Cook*, Jamie Porter.
Match Details:
Umpires: Rob White & David Millns
Match Referee: Will Smith
Toss: Durham won the toss and elected to bat
Scorecard: View Here
Day Four Highlights
Day Four Report
Nick Browne scored his first Championship century this season and Callum Parkinson collected his maiden five-wicket haul for Durham, but the Vitality County Championship at the Seat Unique Riverside ended in a draw.
Such an outcome had always appeared probable once the third day’s play had been lost. However, having made 488 and taken a 130-run lead on first innings, Essex did their best to force a victory on the final afternoon, only for their efforts to founder on the broad bat of Alex Lees, who made 48 not out in 128 minutes and had steered his side to 131 for two when rain and bad light stopped play at 4.40.
The teams shook hands shortly afterwards, at which point David Bedingham, Lees’ third-wicket partner, was unbeaten on 33.
The most notable event of the morning session came in the fifth over of the day when Browne back cut Ben Raine to the boundary to reach his first hundred in 22 Championship innings, a bleak run stretching back to the game against Kent in April 2023.
Browne’s century was also a tribute to his patience in this match. He had batted 286 minutes and faced 238 balls to reach the landmark. Five overs later, another boundary from Browne brought Essex their third batting point but that achievement was swiftly followed by the dismissal of Jordan Cox, who was bowled by Callum Parkinson for 36 when he played outside a ball that was deflected via the back pad to the leg stump.
Parkinson soon collected his second wicket of the morning when he clean bowled Matt Critchley for three with a fine ball that turned past the outside edge and hit off stump. Noah Thain then helped Browne add 55 in 11 overs before being caught at midwicket by Scott Borthwick off Colin Ackermann for 23, but Essex reached lunch on 450 for six with Browne unbeaten on 169.
The visitors looked to score quick runs in the afternoon session and lost four wickets in doing so, including two run outs in three balls. Browne departed for 184 when attempting a third run and failing to beat Alex Lees throw from fine leg and then Harry Duke was sent back by Simon Harmer but Borthwick’s return from midwicket was too sharp.
Parkinson then dismissed Harmer and Jamie Porter in the same over to finish with five for 131 from 31 overs in Essex’s 488 all out.
The visitors’ hopes of causing a collapse were boosted when Borthwick played across a ball from Porter and was lbw for four in the third over of Durham’s second innings. However, Lees and Ackermann put on 75 for the second wicket before Ackermann was caught at slip by Cox off Critchley for 32, a fate that had appeared to befall him on 20, only for the umpires to rule that the ball hadn’t carried.
Durham took 12 points from the game and Essex received 14, a return which leaves the visitors equal on points with Surrey at the top of the First Division. Surrey lead the table purely by virtue of having taken one wicket more than Essex this season.
Day Two Highlights
Day Two Reaction: Feroze Khushi
Day Two Report
A century by Feroze Khushi and Nick Browne’s unbeaten 94 enabled Essex to take control of their Vitality County Championship match against Durham at the Seat Unique Riverside.
Replying to the home side’s 358, the First Division leaders were 314 for three at the close, leaving their side just 44 runs in arrears and perhaps laying the foundations for Essex’s third victory in four matches this season.
Durham’s batters will have something to say about that, of course, on top of which this Riverside pitch is still good for batting and the weather forecast for Sunday is grim. But nothing should detract from the quality of Khushi’s chanceless century, the second of his career and his first since he reached three figures at Canterbury in 2022.
And even when the 24-year-old had been dismissed by Callum Parkinson for 107, Browne shared an unbroken stand of 54 with Jordan Cox to leave his side well placed to take a first-innings lead.
The first wicket to fall in the morning session was that of the nightwatchman, Sam Cook, who was bowled by Paul Coughlin for 25 in the nineteenth over of the innings. By then, however, the stand-in Essex skipper had helped Dean Elgar put on 64 for the first wicket, a partnership which removed much of the shine from the new ball.
Five minutes before lunch, however, Durham took the wicket they most wanted when Elgar’s loose drive outside the off stump to a ball from Matthew Potts edged a catch to Ollie Robinson. T
he opener’s dismissal for 46 left his side on 97 for two at lunch but Potts could reflect that he had been unfortunate not to get an lbw decision against the South African in the first half-hour of play, a period in which Ben Raine had also had two confident leg before appeals against Elgar turned down.
In the afternoon session, Khushi and Browne carefully consolidated their side’s position with Khushi being especially quick to seize on anything loose, driving and pulling Brydon Carse to the boundary in the space of three balls.
He reached his fifty off 102 balls when he off-drove Parkinson to the boundary and celebrated the achievement two deliveries later with a straight drive for four.
The hundred partnership was put up in less than two hours and perhaps the most noticeable feature of the afternoon session was the ease with which the pair dealt with Durham’s six-man attack on a good batting pitch.
Off-spinner Colin Ackermann bowled the last over before tea, at which point Essex were 220 for two, with Khushi on 88 and Browne unbeaten on 46.
The evening session continued much like the afternoon’s. Carse overpitched in the first over after the resumption and Khushi clipped him through midwicket for four to get into the nineties.
A glance to fine leg two overs later and then a punch through midwicket off Ackermann took him to his hundred off 156 balls. He had batted 203 minutes and hit 16 fours.
Ten minutes later, Browne reached his fifty off 143 balls via a slice of good fortune when an attempted off-drive to a ball from Ackermann only produced an edge between Robinson and first slip Coughlin.
Liberated by that achievement, Browne took two successive fours off Ackermann but three overs later, Khushi drove Parkinson straight to Graham Clark at shortish extra cover and departed for 107.
Browne and his new partner Jordan Cox soon had to face the challenge of the new ball but they did so with little fuss.
Day One Highlights
Day One Reaction: Harry Duke
Day One Report
Colin Ackermann’s century failed to deter a spirited Essex bowling attack from dismissing Durham for 358 on Day One of the sides’ Vitality County Championship contest at Seat Unique Riverside.
Ackermann struck a fine 112 and two further home batters made it to fifty, but the perseverance of Jamie Porter and Sam Cook, the latter in his first outing as captain, brought them three wickets apiece.
Simon Harmer and Shane Snater also took two scalps each as Durham were dismissed in the final trappings of the day, leaving Essex to bat out two overs.
Dean Elgar and nightwatchman Cook survived them, reaching stumps on 5-0 to give the hosts an overall lead of 353.
Despite winning the toss and electing to bat, Durham skipper Scott Borthwick may have found himself initially regretting his call as his side slipped to 11-2.
Borthwick himself was first to go for seven as debutant Harry Duke took an outstanding low one-handed catch off Jamie Porter, before the same fate befell Alex Lees for four, this time off Sam Cook.
A counter-attacking fifty from David Bedingham saw the hosts regain an even keel, but Porter ensured the South African would progress no further by knocking back his off stump for a 51-ball 52.
Following lunch, which was taken with Durham 129-3, Ollie Robinson became the second swift half-centurion of the day, doing so in 48 balls as the hosts gained the upper hand in the early afternoon.
It was the in-form Robinson’s sixth consecutive fifty, as he and Ackermann, who also reached the milestone, took the hosts beyond 200.
However, Simon Harmer prised an opening for Essex by taking two wickets in 12 balls, first removing Robinson when on 90, before sharply turning one back into Graham Clark’s middle stump for three.
Brydon Carse was removed just after tea, pinned lbw for 18 by a full Cook delivery, before Ackermann went to his ton with a cut four off Harmer.
Even as the hosts collected three batting points, the arrival of the new ball allowed the Eagles to polish off the tail, with Cook pinning Ackermann lbw and Paul Coughlin caught by Browne off Porter for 30.
Snater then removed the final pair of Matt Potts and Ben Raine, lbw and caught by Jordan Cox respectively, allowing Cook and Elgar the opportunity to commence the Essex response.
The Eagles Have Landed: The 2024 Vitality Blast at The Cloud County Ground
Demand remains exceptionally high, and there is now just one Friday night fixture with availability remaining, the visit of Glamorgan to The Cloud County Ground on 07 June.
With the Eagles aiming to go one better in 2024, there is no time to waste to snap up your seats.
Sunday 02 June, 4:00pm: Essex v Middlesex – buy here
Friday 07 June, 7:00pm: Essex v Glamorgan – buy here (LAST FEW TICKETS)
Friday 14 June, 7:00pm: Essex v Sussex Sharks – SOLD OUT
Thursday 20 June, 7:00pm: Essex v Hampshire Hawks – buy here
Friday 05 July, 7:00pm: Essex v Somerset – SOLD OUT
Thursday 11 July, 7:00pm: Essex v Kent Spitfires – buy here
Sunday 14 July, 2:30pm: Essex v Surrey – buy here
