As one white ball competition concludes, another one begins as Durham take on Lancashire in the Metro Bank One Day Cup opener at Sedbergh School tomorrow starting at 11am.
Durham Head Coach Ryan Campbell has named a 14-player squad for the List A opener which includes a mixture of senior and youth players.
Haydon Mustard, James Minto and Daniel Hogg are all in contention to make their List A debuts in professional cricket while Colin Ackermann is in line to make his List A debut for Durham.
Alex Lees, Colin Ackermann, Ben Raine and Paul Coughlin will add 50 over experience to the Durham squad while Bas de Leede and Michael Jones have a wealth of international List A cricket under their belt from Scotland and Netherlands cricket.
With the Hundred competition commencing this week Durham a number of Durham players won’t be available as Graham Clark, Ollie Robinson, Matthew Potts, Callum Parkinson (Northern Superchargers) and Nathan Sowter (Oval Invinsibles) are on Hundred duty.
This will provide a number of younger Durham players with an opportunity with the likes of Ben McKinney, Haydon Mustard, James Minto and Stanley McAlindon being on show throughout July and August.
George Drissell is currently not available having sustained an ankle injury and is expected to return within two weeks, while Luke Robinson is around 6 week away having sustained a knee injury.
Lancashire are missing 10 players to the Hundred in, Liam Livingstone, Jos Buttler, Phil Salt, Tom Hartley, Mitchell Stanley, Matthew Hurst, Tom Aspinwall, Saqib Mahmood, Luke Wood and Luke Wells; however, they were beaten finalists in 2022 and quarter-finalists last year and still have a wealth of experience and young talent in their squad.
Squad v Lancashire [24 July]
Colin Ackermann, Scott Borthwick, Jonathan Bushnell, Paul Coughlin, Bas de Leede, Daniel Hogg, Michael Jones, Mitchell Killeen, Alex Lees, Stanley McAlindon, Ben McKinney, James Minto. Haydon Mustard+, Ben Raine
Words from Jonathan Bushnell
It was nice to get out there on Sunday and get some runs against Northumberland, it was a tough-ish pitch, so it is a delight to get over the line.
The one-day cup is a good opportunity for young lads like myself and others to get an opportunity and that is really exciting.
With the Hundred quite a few players are away so it is really exciting now this competition starts. The Northumberland game was really important, the last couple of years against Lincolnshire and Northumberland we lost so Ryan Campbell emphasised how important it was to get off to winning start and fortunately we did that on Sunday. We look forward to Wednesday now against Lancashire in what should be a great game.
Opposition Corner
Captain: Keaton Jennings
Overseas players: Tom Bruce (New Zealand), Chris Green (Australia)
2023 finish: Quarter-finalists
2023 leading run scorer: Keaton Jennings (369)
2023 leading wicket taker: Will Williams (13)
Key player: All-rounder George Balderson hit 221 runs and took 10 wickets with his seamers in last season’s competition and has since progressed his game further. The 23-year-old former England Under 19s skipper has been talismanic in Lancashire’s Vitality County Championship team and debuted in T20s last month. He just seems to make things happen.
Keep an eye on: This could be the campaign which sees Rocky Flintoff make his first-team debut. The middle order batter, 16, with a famous father has scored centuries for Lancashire’s second team and for the England Under 19s already this summer. He’s a tall, aggressive and fearless right-hander. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?!
Final thought: Beaten finalists in 2022, quarter-finalists last year, Lancashire should go close to making it third time lucky. There are a few ifs, buts and TBCs surrounding their overseas situation. Chris Green, for example, has a Caribbean Premier League T20 deal from late August onwards and is also on standby for The Hundred.
Match Centre
The Club’s match centre will be in operation for the fixture with live scorecards, statistics & video highlights as they happen. You can watch the game live via Durham’s match centre and Lancashire Cricket YouTube channel.