By Jon Steer
September 1 2003

A half century and some tight bowling by Paul Collingwood against Derby helped us to our third NCL win in a row. In fact we have won every game since Colly returned from injury! Let's hope it continues at Northampton this week. It was a close run thing at Derby yesterday. After been put into bat Martin Love and Gordon Muchall put on a solid opening partnership. But just when Love was starting to get into top gear he was dismissed by Dominic Cork for 48 from 46 balls.

Muchall continued solidly before also falling to Cork for 39 off 91 balls, a good performance as stand in opener in place of Nicky Peng.

Enter Ashley Thorpe and Paul Collingwood and another solid stand, this time at a slightly quicker rate which saw us moving towards a good total. Collingwood became Cork's third victim when he was out for 54 from just 48 balls, another fine batting display.

A quick 20 from Gary Pratt helped us reach a total of 216 for 7, the second highest total this season and only the fourth time we have passed 200.

Derbyshire started off aggressively and despite the early loss of Cork, Di Venuto and Bassano were scoring at over six and over and looking very much in control. Then a great few overs from Graham Bridge saw him take four wickets in quick succession including the important one of Di Venuto to bring Derbyshire down from 113-1 to 123-5.

When Harmison then dismissed Bassano just after he reached his half century the balance of the game had swung well towards Durham with Derbyshire struggling at 133-6.

But there was more to come, a fine innings from Stubbings brought Derbyshire within reach of victory before he was last man out, bowled by Neil Killeen of the first ball of the final over with Derbyshire needing just 12 runs to win.

So three in a row for Durham with two more NCL games to go this season. Lets hope we can take the form into the Championship this week with every game now crucial to our promotion prospects.