THE presence of Paul Collingwood in their team did nothing for Durham as they again batted poorly in their Twenty20 Cup tie at home to Leicestershire.

Against a very inexperienced attack Durham’s only excuse was that they had never seen any of the bowlers before as they crumbled from 35 without loss to 55 for five.

Kyle Coetzer held things together, and as in Tuesday’s defeat by Derbyshire, emerged as top scorer with 39 not out in a total of total of 144 for eight.

But it was only because of a cameo contribution by No 8 batsman Gareth Breese, who hit 37 off 15 balls, that Durham got close to a competitive total.

After scoring three off the first ten balls he faced, Collingwood went down the pitch to hit 18-year-old seamer Alex Wyatt over long-on for six. He then tried to paddle a straight ball to fine leg and was bowled for nine.

After winning the toss for the third successive game, skipper Will Smith’s changed tack by chossing to bat. But his own struggles continued with a second successive duck. Bowled first ball against Derbyshire, this time he edged the second ball he faced to wicketkeeper Paul Nixon as Wyatt finished with three for 14 in his four overs.

His first victim, with his second ball, was Michael Di Venuto, who had got Durham off to a flying start with Phil Mustard against some very ordinary bowling from two more youngsters, Harry Gurney and Wayne White.

Mustard drove three fours through the covers before left-armer Gurney began to bang the ball in short. He surprised Mustard with his bounce to have him caught behind for 15 in the fifth over, and without addition Di Venuto departed for the same score, caught at deep mid-wicket.

Ian Blackwell also lifted a catch to the same position to depart for a duck as 24-year-old Jigar Naik, the first Leicester-born Asian to play for the county, took one for three in his first two overs.

In fact, with Wyatt bowling a maiden at that point, Durham took only one run off the tenth and 11th overs, which is quite unheard of in Twenty20.

Given Smith’s lack of form, it was strange to see Dale Benkenstein coming in as low as No 7. He scored 19 in a stand of 35 in five overs with Coetzer before being run out, bringing in Breese in the 16th over.

He had given Coetzer 11 overs start and three overs later he overtook him. In the 18th over he drove 19-year-old leg-spinner James Taylor for a straight four and smashed the next ball over extra cover for six.

In the next over, bowled by Gurney, Breese cut and pulled the first two balls for four then edged the next two to the boundary.

But he fell to the last ball of the final over, caught on the mid-wicket boundary, and after taking 33 off the previous two overs 11 off the last, which included a no-ball, was a disappointment.

In fact, Breese apart, the whole innings was a disappointment for the 4,000 sun-baked fans, who needed some half-hearted attempts at Mexican waves to keep themselves amused.