Durham’s Matthew Potts took a career-best nine for 68 to help his side complete their innings and 63-run thrashing of Lancashire in the Vitality County Championship match at Seat Unique Riverside.
Resuming on 155 for four and needing another 190 runs to avoid their their fourth innings defeat of the season, Lancashire lost their last six wickets in less than a session and were bowled out for 282. The only shred of comfort for the visitors was offered by 20-year-old Matty Hurst, who made 67, his second fifty of the match and fifth half-century of the season.
At one stage of his devastating spell from the Lumley End, Potts was on a hat-trick but he had to settle for three wickets in four balls when Tom Bailey nicked his second delivery to first slip Scott Borthwick. The Durham spearhead finished his first spell on this final morning with figures of 10-1-30-5 and ended the game when he had Anderson Phillip leg before wicket to complete a match return of 12 for 126.
Durham take 24 points from the game, effectively ending any lingering fears of relegation, whereas Lancashire take one point, a return which keeps them in ninth place in Division One deepens their anxieties that they will be playing in the second tier next April.
Lancashire’s collapse began with the ninth ball of the morning when George Balderson was leg before wicket to Potts for 16 but it really moved into top gear about half an hour later when Venkatesh Iyer played on to the Durham fast bowler and Tom Hartley immediately lost his off stump when not attempting a stroke.
Bailey prevented the hat-trick but nicked his second ball from Potts to Borthwick to leave yet another Lancashire innings in tatters on 195 for eight.
Hurst and Anderson Philip delayed Durham for a few overs but Borthwick’s bowlers were not to be denied. Having made a fine 67 off 125 balls, Hurst hooked Potts to long leg where Callum Parkinson took an excellent tumbling catch a few inches from the boundary rope.
After an entertaining last-wicket stand of 61 in 12 overs between Anderson Philip and Tom Aspinwall, the game ended when Potts was recalled and dismissed Phillip for 41. Aspinwall finished unbeaten on 26.
The bad news for Durham supporters ahead of their final two Championship games is that Potts will now join England’s squad for the one-day internationals and will not be available to the county for the rest of the season.
Day 3- Durham 573/9 dec vs Lancashire 228AO & 155/4
Bedingham’s 279 surpassed Martin Love’s 273 against Hampshire in 2003 and his innings was the bedrock of his team’s 573 for nine declared. Facing a deficit of 345, Lancashire ended the day poorly placed on 155 for four with Matthew Potts having taken three of the wickets. Keaton Jennings’ side therefore need another 190 runs to avoid their fourth innings defeat of the season.
And it was a day when other records tumbled at the Riverside. Bedingham and Colin Ackermann’s 424-run fifth-wicket partnership set a new record for any wicket in Durham’s first-class history, easily eclipsing the 334 put on by Stewart Hutton and Michael Roseberry against Oxford University in The Parks in 1996.
It is also the eighth-highest fifth-wicket stand in the history of first-class cricket and the second highest first-class partnership for any wicket against Lancashire.
The mammoth stand was eventually broken by the leg-spinner, Luke Wells, who had Ackermann leg before wicket for 186 in the fourth over after lunch. Wells then enjoyed more success when he had Ben Raine caught at backward point by George Bell for 17 and Bas de Leede stumped by Matty Hurst for four.
Tom Hartley took his only wicket of the innings when he had Potts leg before wicket for four and the declaration was applied when Bedingham was caught at long-on by Anderson Phillip off Wells. He had batted 489 minutes, faced 359 balls and hit 27 fours and a six.
Wells finished with respectable figures of four for 69 but was soon out in the middle again when he opened Lancashire’s second innings with Jennings. However, their alliance lasted only nine balls before the Lancashire skipper was caught at second slip by Ackermann off Potts for nought.
Josh Bohannon joined Wells and guided Lancashire to 49 for one at tea but the visitors lost two wickets in five balls immediately after the resumption. Wells was bowled by Callum Parkinson when attempting to reverse sweep the slow left-armer and George Bell was caught behind by Ollie Robinson off Potts for a two-ball nought.
Bohannon and Hurst then added 73 for the fourth wicket in increasingly untroubled fashion before Bohannon groped at a ball from Potts without moving his feet and was caught at first slip by Scott Borthwick. Hurst ended the day on 43 not out and he and George Balderson ensured no more wickets fell before close of play.
However, Lancashire have so far earned just one point from this match and their relegation fears will not have been eased by this third day’s play. By contrast, Durham have eight points with plenty of power to add more tomorrow.
Having restricted Lancashire to 228 all out in their first innings, the home side were 367 for four at the close, a lead of 139, with Bedingham on 177 not out and Colin Ackermann unbeaten on 111. The pair’s unbroken stand of 268 has already set a new fifth-wicket record for Durham in first-class cricket.
The one positive aspect of the day’s play from a Lancastrian perspective was the bowling of the Trinidadian, Anderson Philip, who took two for 86 on his debut, but it now looks as though the visitors will face a battle to avoid a third Championship defeat in succession.
In the morning session, Lancashire’s last four wickets added a further 51 runs to their overnight total. Matty Hurst was run out for 90 after a mix-up with Tom Bailey and Ben Raine took his fifth wicket of the innings when he had Anderson Phillip, the Lancashire debutant, leg before wicket for two.
Raine finished with five for 44, his best return of the season, but crucially for their hopes of staying in Division One, Lancashire failed to earn a batting bonus point for the third successive match.
Replying to the visitors’ modest 228, Durham’s batters encountered their own problems against the new Kookaburra ball. Ben McKinney gave Phillip his first wicket for his new county when he played on for eight and Scott Borthwick’s indeterminate waft at a ball from Bailey edged a catch to Hurst with the home skipper on nine.
Bedingham and Alex Lees took Durham to lunch on 46 for two and the pair batted serenely for nearly an hour after the resumption, at which point the home side were rocked by two lbw decisions in eight balls.
Lees fell to Phillip for 43 and then Ollie Robinson was trapped on the crease by Tom Aspinwall for four to leave Durham on 99 for four. Bedingham and Ackermann prevented Lancashire making any more breakthroughs and Durham reached tea on 178 for four, only 50 runs in arrears.
Shortly after the resumption, Bedingham reached his thousand first-class runs for the season with a single off Tom Hartley and it was noted that nearly a quarter of them had been taken off the Red Rose’s attack.
But worse was to follow for Keaton Jennings’ bowlers as Bedingham reached his sixth Championship century in just 15 innings this season when he stroked Hartley to long-on for another single. The South African had reached three figures off 143 balls with 11 fours and a six and there had hardly been a moment in his innings when he hadn’t looked in complete control.
Nor was there any point in the evening session when Lancashire looked like taking a wicket. For long periods, Jennings posted five men in the deep and appeared content to cut off the boundaries. The fifth-wicket stand partnership passed 200 when Bedingham pulled a lifter from Aspinwall through midwicket for four.
While almost all other Championship games in the country were interrupted by rain, home supporters sat in the sun and waited to see if Ackermann would reach his century and if the Durham pair would eclipse the county’s record fifth-wicket partnership of 254 set by Ned Eckersley and Bedingham himself against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 2021.
They were not disappointed. Three overs from the close, Ackermann got to his hundred off 165 balls and a new fifth-wicket record was set when Bedingham stroked Bailey to deep square leg off the next delivery.
Day 1, Lancashire 177/6.
Ben Raine took four wickets for 23 runs from 18 overs including his 250th first-class wicket for Durham, as the home side enjoyed a strong first day of the Vitality County Championship match at Seat Unique Riverside.
Raine made the most of bowler-friendly conditions to help reduce Keaton Jennings’ side to 177 for six after 78 overs on a day that was shortened by morning rain.
Home supporters might view that as a decent return in a match played with a Kookaburra ball but Lancashire’s plight could have been vastly worse had not Matthew Hurst made a fine 74 not out and Josh Bohannon added 49 during two long sessions when run-scoring was often difficult.
Raine was well supported by Matthew Potts, who took two for 36, while West Indian bowler, Chemar Holder, endured a testing first day as a Durham bowler, finishing with nought for 53 from his eight overs.
Persistent drizzle delayed the start of play until 12.50 and it was no surprise that Durham skipper Scott Borthwick chose to bowl first on winning the toss.
Nor was it particularly startling, given their current form, that Lancashire’s first innings began badly. Raine had Luke Wells caught behind by Ollie Robinson off the first ball of the game and then produced a magnificent delivery which nipped away and bowled Jennings for nine in the ninth over.
Josh Bohannon tucked into three wayward overs from Holder before losing his third-wicket partner, Venkatesh Iyer, with the total on 49 when the Indian all-rounder was caught behind off Potts for seven.
Matty Hurst survived for 36 minutes and 26 balls before scoring his first run but Lancashire’s closest shaves came at the other end where Bohannon edged Potts between the wicketkeeper and first slip and survived a confident appeal for caught behind off Raine, before finally falling for 49 when a thin-edged catch to Robinson gave the Durham seamer his third wicket.
Lancashire got to tea on 96 for four but soon lost George Bell for seven when Lancashire’s No6 pulled Potts straight to Holder at midwicket. Although Hurst reached his fourth Championship fifty off 88 balls with seven fours and a six, the visitors soon lost their sixth wicket when George Balderson edged a drive off Raine to Colin Ackermann at second slip and departed for 10.
Hurst and Tom Hartley then batted with great good sense for over an hour, adding an unbroken 39 in 25 overs to ensure that Lancashire didn’t suffer any further damage before the close, although by that time their side still needed 73 runs to secure their first batting point since July 1.