Ben Stokes and Gareth Breese were the heroes with the bat and Chris Rushworth with the ball as Durham kept their finals chances alive tonight at Emirates Durham ICG.
Stokes claimed his third in a row Man of the Match award as he cruised Durham to victory with 41no from 26 and 2 wickets after the Dynamos had a shaky start to their innings.
Earlier in the evening, Durham won the toss and elected to bowl in humid conditions, a decision which paid dividends with the Dynamos off to a flyer.
Chris Rushworth opened the bowling from the Lumley End and got Durham off to the perfect start dismissing both the openers in his first over with Cobb lobbing one up to the hands of Gareth Breese and then Smith going next ball after he edged one through to keeper Phil Mustard.
In his next over, Rushworth then struck again and claimed his 3rd in the 4th over, clean bowling the dangerous Joe Burns to have the visitors in trouble at 17-3.
Things then continued to get bad for the Foxes with Graham Onions in on the wickets when he got his first in the 7th over with Scott Borthwick juggling the catch to dismiss O’Brien for 13.
The next Foxes pair lasted five overs at the crease before another wicket tumbled but in those five struggled to put runs on the board with the Durham attack denying many run scoring options with some tight spells.
Spinner Ryan Pringle got the 5th wicket when he had Al Hasan lbw for 15 and left Leicestershire in deep trouble at 5-55 with 8 overs to go.
The Durham bowlers were doing a superb job at restricting the run rate for the visitors with Leicestershire recording just the 2 fours with just 5 overs left in their innings.
Ben Stokes continued to send the Foxes back to the dugout when he claimed his first wicket in the 16th when Thornley found Gordon Muchall on the boundary leaving Leicestershire 85-6 with just the 3 overs remaining.
In the 19th over Stokes struck again and took his second thanks to a nice low catch behind the stumps to Phil Mustard which saw Thakor on his way, the only real contributor to the Foxes innings making 42 from 38.
14 runs off the final two overs saw the visitors take their total to 119-7 leaving the Dynamos needing a run a ball to be one step closer to a possible quarter finals berth.
The Foxes dealt the first blow with the ball when they got the big wicket of Mustard in the second over who edged one to the slips for just 1.
Some cautious batting for the next six overs saw Stoneman and Borthwick add 34 to the total before skipper Stoneman departed after making 12 hitting straight to Cobb with Taylor taking the wicket.
Will Smith then came to the crease but made just the 2 runs before he edged one behind to the keeper to give Taylor his second wicket in the 9th over with the scoreboard just ticking over 50 for the Dynamos.
After making 30 from 33 Scott Borthwick hit one straight to Joe Burns giving Taylor his third and when Muchall was given out lbw in the 12th, Taylor picked up his 4th and Durham were in trouble chasing the low total.
The Dynamos, although just needing a run a ball at the start of the run chase were now looking at 8 an over and they needed a spark to ignite the innings and set off the good crowd that had gathered at Emirates Durham ICG
That spark came through Ben Stokes and Gareth Breese with the pair with some superb shots to get Durham back on track.
The duo compiled a phenomenal 64 run partnership to get the Dynamos ahead of the run rate with the pairs 50 run stand off just 26 balls.
With the equation dwindled down to needing 12 off the final 3 overs, the pair did it with ease as Ben Stokes got his third man of the match performance with 41no from 26 balls (2 fours and 3 sixes) and Breese finishing on 24no from 15 balls (4 boundaries) to give Durham the 5 wicket win.
The win means the Dynamos quarter final hopes are still alive and will need to beat Derbyshire on Sunday and hope a few results go their way to progress to the quarter final stage.
Durham would like Yorkshire to upset Nottingham as well as hope Lancashire defeat Derbyshire to assist in the process of making the quarter finals.
All they can do however is prepare for Sunday’s huge match at Emirates Durham ICG against the Falcons and we are encouraging fans to do their bit and come and support the team as they aspire for a quarter final place.
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