By Jon Steer
May 24 2005

Bad weather on the final day of Durham's match against Yorkshire meant that the game ended in a draw. Very little play was possible until the final session of the day which saw Durham end on 226-8 just 19 runs from victory. Durham had started the day on 53-0 but lost Jon Lewis and Paul Collingwood without any addition to the score. At lunch Durham were 82-2 and with very little play possible before tea the only way to victory would be through much more attacking play.

But when Hussey and Muchall tried to push the scoring rate wickets started to fall, Hussey was out for 61, then Muchall just 3 short of his half century to leave the score on 154-4 and almost 100 runs still needed. Victory still looked likely with the weather brightening up and play likely to go on until 6.30pm. But then came another failure from Nicky Peng who made just 11 and Durham were running out of batsmen.

Durham's hero from the first innings, Phil Mustard then came to the wicket and hit fours from his first two balls before being caught out from his fourth ball to leave Durham in a bit of trouble on 177-6.

With the loss of Mustard, Benkenstein started to play more defensively but as a decent partnership was building with Gareth Breese the tactic seemed to working as Durham moved closer to the target with enough time left to pull off a win.

But when Breese was run out and Plunkett trapped lbw by Harvey the score was 219-8, less than fifteen minutes play left and 26 runs still needed. Benkenstein could have tried to push for the win but decided that safety was the best policy and made sure that Durham remained unbeaten.

If a full days play had been possible, there is little doubt that Durham would have reached the target in good time but they will feel that they let Yorkshire off the hook in both innings and that the total they were chasing could have been significantly smaller.

Still, one more point that Yorkshire means that Durham extend their lead at the top of the division. With Essex losing to Worcs Durham and Yorkshire are now the only two unbeaten teams in the division.