AFTER the hammering of Hampshire, Durham sounded an even bigger warning that the title will take a lot of wresting from their grasp when they dismissed second-placed Lancashire for 116. The wilting of the Red Rose began with the first two victims, one of Australian origin, the other South African, almost having to be crowbarred from the Riverside crease. Paul Horton and Ashwell Prince both showed such a reluctance to depart that umpire Neil Mallender would have been justified in reporting them for dissent. It is certainly not the way to earn an umpire’s favour and he also gave out Mal Loye lbw, although on this occasion the batsman was turning to leave almost before the finger went up. Those first three wickets all went to Graham Onions, continuing his purple patch in another superb display. Both he and Steve Harmison finished with four wickets and there were four catches for Phil Mustard to add to his half-century in the morning. Onions also continued his habit of striking in the first over of a spell. Having done it three times in the win against Hampshire, he removed Horton with the second ball of the innings, caught down the leg side by Mustard. The nonplussed batsman indicated the ball had brushed his shirt, but the catch continued a great start to the day for the Mustard and Onions partnership. It might be pushing it a bit to say they got Durham out of a pickle, but they added 32 runs when Durham resumed on 212 for eight. After having to dig in on the first day, Mustard relished the chance to play a few shots while also trying to farm the strike. Having ignored what should have been called a leg-side wide off the last ball of a Glen Chapple over, he called Onions through for a cheeky single off the first ball of the next, bowled by Andrew Flintoff. Lancashire appeared to be getting rattled as Francois du Plessis shied at the stumps and conceded four overthrows. Mustard, 31 overnight, reached 50 off 93 balls but added only one more before he was caught at third man off Flintoff, who then had his big pal, Harmison, caught at second slip. It was the second time in successive innings Harmison had been out first ball and Flintoff finished with four for 47. When Flintoff came in after Harmison’s steep bounce forced Mark Chilton to lob a catch to short leg the comeback man was twice beaten early on. Flintoff was unbeaten on three at lunch, but with the fifth ball after the break Harmison forced him to play on. With Mitch Claydon striking twice in three balls, only du Plessis offered much resistance before falling to 41 to the first ball of Harmison’s second spell. He tried to pull what was just a gentle loosener and gloved a leg-side catch to Mustard.