By Jon Steer
April 21 2005

A century from Paul Collingwood moved Durham into the lead on the second morning of their championship match with Worcestershire at the Riverside. Colly and Gordon Muchall put on 80 runs for the third wicket. Colly went on to score 129. Collingwood's highest championship score for over three years was enough to see Durham into a first innings lead. By the time he was out the lead had moved past fifty as Durham reached 236/4 at lunch.

Colly began the day on 88 and after reaching his century he hit sixes off the bowling of Gareth Batty and Sheriyar before becoming Batty's first wicket of the innings.

Earlier in the morning Gordon Muchall was caught behind off the bowling of Sheriyar after sharing a stand of 80 with Colly. Dale Benkenstein and Nicky Peng took Durham through to lunch finishing on 23 and 5 not out respectively.

The weather looks set fair as Durham try to get as big a lead and as many batting points as possible - the current pair will probably be crucial and a decent partnership could see Durham dominating the match.

The century for Collingwood will be very welcome as he tries to impress the England selectors and convince them to give him another run in the test squad for the upcoming tours by Bangladesh and Australia.