.After winning the toss and electing to bat first Durham didn’t make the best start to their innings and were 44-4 by the end of the 11th over.
A sharp start in the field for Somerset saw Mark Stoneman run out for 3 in the third over and his replacement, Gordon Muchall who was playing in place of an injured Michael Di Venuto, trapped lbw by Steve Kirby without adding to the Durham total.
It took until the 7th over for the Dynamos to beat the hosts field and secure their first boundary of the inning and as the pair in the middle looked to increase the run rate Phil Mustard was caught at deep square leg by Craig Meschede off Peter Trego for 24.
Trego struck again two balls later when Paul Collingwood was caught by Murali Kartik in the slips 13.
The Somerset bowling unraveled slightly in the middle section with Ian Blackwell and Benkenstein taking full advantage to try and rescue the Durham cause.
The pair added 85 before Blackwell was caught by Meschede off Kartik for 41. Gareth Breese was caught by james Hildreth off Meschede without scoring leaving the Dynamos 130-6 with 15 overs remaining.
Benkenstein, who had been dropped on 0, scored 50 from 50 deliveries, including a six and four boundaries, which helped Durham steady their innings but he was run out on 82 going for a second run to add the board just as Durham had passed the 200 mark.
Alfonso Thomas claimed the scalp of Scott Borthwick, who had added a valuable 30 to the total, with 2.5 overs to spare.
Mitchell Claydon added 2 before he was bowled by Kirby and the last wicket fell, that of Graham Onions, with the Durham score at 219.
The Somerset openers batted well in the early stages scoring well above the required rate and their partnership of 78 in the first 11 overs pushed them well into contention for the win.
Durham eventually claimed a wicket, thanks to Thorp who bowled Chris for 33. Suppiah and Trego continued to score reasonably freely before the former was stumped off Breese for 57 with Somerset 125-2 in the 19th over,
Breese claimed a second wicket, that of Hildreth who was caught behind on 13 four overs later.
Somerset were 165-3 after 27 overs, well ahead of the D/L target, when rain brought play to a halt.
Play was abandoned once continued to worsen and Somerset were declared the winners by 39 runs (D/L).
At the close of play durhamccc.co.uk spoke to Dynamos skipper Dale Benkenstein, “It’s obviously very disappointing. I think it was a good toss to win and they showed really what a good side they are. They gave us nothing with the ball and it just seemed that in those first five or six overs everything was going in fast forward and we just needed to calm ourselves down. In that rush we lost a few too many wickets and got ourselves on the back foot on what I thought was a pretty good wicket.
“Somerset were bowling exactly where they were wanting to bowl and had the fielders in the right places and didn’t bowl anything short and wide or give us anything much to hit. They created the pressure and we weren’t good enough to hang in and try and build a partnership. Their opening bowlers were their real strength. Graham and Mitch have been outstanding with the new ball and that has been our real strength, it is a ridiculous schedule, the guys wanted to be up for it but I think I think there was probably a little bit of petrol lacking in the tank coming into this game. It was a good wicket and we needed to bowl extra well but we didn’t start well with the ball.
“Towards the end there was a bit of turn and if we had got more runs on the board it would have been tough to beat. We started the season wanted to reach these stages of competitions and to reach them is great but the next stage is to learn how to cope individually with the big occasions and perform. We have shown that we can beat the best and it’s just being calm enough in ourselves to perform under pressure that we have lacked ultimately in this one day campaign.”