IMPRESSIVE bowling by Yorkshire exposed Durham’s Twenty20 inadequacies as the Headingley visitors mustered only 116 for eight.

With both teams on two wins from four, and competing for the second qualifying place in the group, only Dale Benkenstein survived for more than a few overs.

Promoted to No 4, he top-scored with 36 but was starved of the strike when he wanted to press on and finally holed out in the 19th over.

With storm clouds gathering, Durham chose to bat and profited from a couple of early fumbles in the field as the light continued to fade.

Gordon Muchall saw the ball clearly from the outset, however, when he went in after Michael Di Venuto was adjudged lbw to Rana Naved-ul-Hasan’s sixth ball. It looked to have done enough off the pitch to have a chance of missing leg stump.

Muchall, left out since the opening match at Trent Bridge, came in for Kyle Coetzer and timed the ball superbly with a series of pick-ups to leg.

One flew for six behind square as the fifth over, bowled by Deon Kruis, yielded 15 runs, making Phil Mustard’s surrender in the next over unnecessary. He stepped back to hit a straight ball from Tim Bresnan over cover and was bowled.

Yorkshire recalled Ajmal Shahzad at the expense of Richard Pyrah, who had been the match-winner when the sides met at Headingley in the Friends Provident Trophy three weeks ago.

Coming on for the seventh over, Shahzad struck a big blow when he had Muchall lbw for 26, made off 18 balls. Again it looked questionable, this time on height.

Varying his pace well, Shahzad conceded only seven off his first two overs and at 64 for three after ten the umpires consulted as rain began to fall. But they carried on and it quickly passed.

Benkenstein showed his class by late cutting David Wainwright for four, but when Will Smith also tried to run the left-arm spinner to third man he misjudged the flight and was bowled.

The captain had, however, contributed a sprightly 20 to a stand of 35, and the 12th over was not a bad time for Ian Blackwell to come in after being demoted from No 4.

Shahzad bowled straight through his four overs to finish with one for 18 and at 80 for four after 13 overs Benkenstein decided to press the accelerator.

He lifted Wainwright over mid-wicket for six, but when Blackwell smashed the spinner to cow corner Kruis flung himself to his left to hold a superb catch.

The dark clouds had passed, but things were now looking gloomy for Durham, especially as Rana still had three overs to bowl.

He returned for the 16th over and began with five dot balls to Gareth Breese, whose Friday night fluency against Derbyshire had vanished.

With Bresnan back at the other end, Breese began to shuffle around the crease to no avail and Benkenstein saw little of the strike.

The Jamaican had made five off 15 balls when he walked across to the off side and was bowled trying to lift Rana over square leg.

Ben Harmison was run out for four by Michael Vaughan’s direct hit and the last six overs produced only 26 runs for Durham when they would have been looking for 60.