DURHAM added 30 runs in 30 minutes before they were all out for 433, then took only one wicket in 19 overs before lunch on the placid Edgbaston pitch.
Graham Onions knocked out Warwickshire skipper Ian Westwood’s middle stump in the fifth over, but Ian Bell survived a sticky start, which included being hit on the hand on nought by a brute of a ball from Steve Harmison.
The paceman also struck the bespectacled Tony Frost a ferocious blow on the helmet, but other than checking that his glasses were intact, the opener seemed unperturbed.
Harmison did not have a good start to the day. Although he shyly raised his bat to acknowledge his team-mates’ applause when he scored his first run in five innings – a single through the gully area – he got out to the next ball he faced.
Attempting a reverse sweep, he hit it straight into the hands of Bell at leg gully, and Harmison’s second ball then flew down the leg side for four wides.
His radar was not quite as he would have liked it in his first four overs, but then he began to pose a real threat and was unlucky not to be rewarded as Warwickshire reached 56 for one at lunch.
Earlier Ian Blackwell included a big six wide of long-on off Jeentap Patel in the 19 runs he added before he was bowled for 158 by Boyd Rankin when going for another big hit.
Durham had Scott Borthwick fielding as a substitute for thigh strain victim Mark Stoneman.
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