By Daniel Fullard
April 14 2006

Cricket returned to the Riverside when Durham welcomed Scotland for the first of two pre-season friendlies, played to the rules of the revised C&G 50 over competition in which Scotland and Durham play in the northern division. Durham batted first and notched up a very impressive 282-3, although made less impressive by the poor Scottish attack. I use the word attack lightly because there was virtually nothing there. Very few of the Scottish bowlers posed any threat at all. Dewald Nel looked about the best on the day, although the solid all rounder RR Watson but on a good effort. Captain and usual top-man Craig Wright had an inconsistent day with the ball, one over he was having a maiden the next he was giving away 16. It was that sort of day. Sean Weeraratna was terrible, just terrible and after a promising start young spinner Ross Lyons was batted off the pitch.

Durham batsmen had a solid opening reaching 50 by the end of ten overs. Things died off though and they only got 21 from the next 10 overs which given the poor bowling is a cause for concern. But after about the 25th over they attacked and simply went for it and there was little the Scots could do. There were plenty of overs in the double figures, plenty close to 20 and overall once that rough patch of the 10th to the 23rd over was passed it was a good display.

Gary Pratt notched up an unbeaten century with some very impressive batting and he looks to have really benefited from his time in India at the cricket academy. Jon Lewis and youngster, promising youngster should I say, Gary Scott opened the batting scoring 40 and 30 respectively but I’m not sure either would be in my first choice team for the limited overs game as they simply don’t score often enough. Here was a perfect example today. The drab period of 27 runs in 13 overs was largely to do with their excessive caution and failure to punish bad-bolwing. Muchall did a great job with a 61 before being run out and Mustard was going nicely on 31 as the innings came to an end. At 282 I didn’t see the Scots coming back and even though they didn’t, they sure did surprise me.

Douglas Lockhart has impressed me every time I have seen him and he hit a very strong and confident looking 102 with some nice strokeplay and plenty of boundaries. He racked up a great partnership with the equally impressive Ian Stanger (61) and they got a partnership of 143 before loosing the first wicket. At this point Scotland were well ahead of Durham but the late surge from Durham with the constant double figure overs made a Scottish win always against the odds. But after the impressive display of the openers the team collapsed and if I was a Scottish fan Id be worried about the quality of bastmen. Wicketkeeper Colin Smith got a decent 27 but that’s the only other innings worth mentioning. Durham were not bowling well at all either and with the usually solid all rounder Ryan Watson going for a duck, skilled captain Colin Wright going for a mere 9, for some reason putting himself in in the tailend, and batsmen like Fraser Watts reaching only 11 and Omar Hussain (0) and Kasim Farid (1) making no mark on the game when needed the Scots lacked bite and the promising start was wasted by the collapse of the wickets and in the end the visitors scored a respectable 229 all out from just over 49 overs.


I think Scotland might actually surprise a few people this season. Watson and Wright had off days today and I for one know they can bat well and if Gavin Hamilton can play more often and Lockhart and Stanger can play this well then they might just surprise a few teams in the Cup but in all honesty when it comes to bowling they lack strength in depth. Wright on his day can be marvellous as can Watson and they do have Hoffman and Hamilton to call upon but any time they have to rely on the likes of Weerenta and Lyons they are in trouble.

Durham bowling was nothing special. Our new boy Ottis Gibson bowled 6 overs to kick things off but never came back to compete and really didn’t make a mark. He looked awfully fast though and hopefully at the rip age of 37 he can give us a good two years. At 18 in his 6 overs I can’t complain though. Calum Thorp, who has a lot to prove had a good day taking two wickets and generally keeping runs against him low. Ill add up the figures from my scorecard later, or see if I can find them online, but his economy will be under 3. Mark Davies was very costly and simply looked off his game today and even though he got a wicket he was very costly and looked a limp version of the Davies we know. Bridge had a good day of sorts, although he Scott and Breese were at times heavily punished by the batsmen, Bridge managed to take two wickets from two balls and will have a pretty good economy for the day. Gary Scott doesn’t appear to be a bowler of first-class standard but he gave his all and even though he was costly, despite taking a wicket, there was no harm in trying him out as the game was won by that point bar a miracle from Scotland.

But the bowling man of the match for Durham must go to Graham Onions and when playing this well they can’t afford to leave him out the first team. He was the ma slowing the run rates down when he Scots were desperate to raise them and his figures for today will be impressive when I work them out.

Overall the sun was shining and the 200-300 people at the ground will have had a nice and enjoyable day of good cricket with plenty of runs and a win for the home side. I am not going to read too much into the result other than reiterate my point that other than Onions, neither side bowled that well and the Scottish attack seems very limp. Pratt I don’t think was a cert for the first team but may have played himself in with that but Muchall looked good too. It will be interesting to see what team we go with in the opening games.