“Everything feels better when you’re winning.”
Durham head coach Jon Lewis is targeting an upturn in fortunes & performances ahead of Friday’s Specsavers County Championship match against Northamptonshire at Emirates Riverside.
After back-to-back defeats against Sussex & Glamorgan, the latter in a final over thriller, Durham return to action eyeing a first four-day win of 2017.
The loss at Swansea came with three balls remaining after a bold declaration from captain Paul Collingwood, forgoing a shot at twin centuries to finish on 92 not out & leave the hosts 266 to win from 51 overs.
Lewis acknowledged although it was an ultimately unsuccessful outcome, Collingwood got the decision spot on after losing 16 post-lunch overs to rain.
“Fair play to Colly, he tried to keep the game as open as possible, for as long as possible, in order to keep us within a chance of winning,” he said.
“We were running out of overs to bowl them out & with the pitch holding together well, bowling them out in 50 overs was going to be very tricky if they didn’t have a chance of winning. It was a tricky declaration that Paul got right.
“We had to make sure we didn’t close the game up & where we are in the league, we need to win.
“It was a brave attempt, it didn’t quite come off & everyone was pretty down because it was tough to take another defeat, but in the end we lost a game trying to win it & that’s not something we should be embarrassed about.”
There were positives to take from the jaunt to the South Coast & South Wales, not least the performance of George Harding on first-class debut.
Harding took four-for on a pitch offering little assistance to the spin bowlers & Lewis admits he’s looking to the younger players to step up with match-winning performances.
“It was a great experience for him. George held himself together well, picked himself up some wickets, it was a tough debut but he did pretty well.
“The younger lads have got to make contributions & more, we also need match-winning performances from them. These things don’t happen overnight.
“The Hove game was tough, it was pretty hard at times but they stuck together very well in the field & the bowlers did a decent job. They kept coming in a way which is encouraging bearing in mind where they are in their careers & considering not many of them have had that sort of workload before.
“It was not great, but it could’ve been worse & credit to the guys that they held themselves together so well.”
Attention now turns towards Friday & the visit of Northants, with Durham still in pursuit of 24 points – the equivalent of a full bonus points victory – to return to zero.
Ten victories remain up for grabs & Lewis knows promotion is an optimistic aim admitting “we have to win them all from here” to be in with an outside chance.
“It’s becoming more of an optimistic target but the focus has to be on better performances & with that will come better results.
“We can look at how tough things have been & how young players are improving with exposure at a higher level but ultimately, we need to get better results because everything feels better when you’re winning.”