DURHAM were unlikely to have been tempted to go out on the town with their old mate Shoaib Akhtar in Worcester last night.

Although the world's fastest bowler's stint with Worcestershire is not scheduled to start until July 1, he timed his arrival to coincide with the visit of Durham and must have wished he could perform against them on a day when conditions generally favoured the bowlers.

Having already beaten Worcestershire at home, Durham will not have to face Shoaib. But they had enough difficulties with the man he replaces, Chaminda Vaas, plus Kabir Ali and Matt Mason.

Although everyone reached double figures, no-one ever looked established and the top scorer was Phil Mustard with 39 in a total of 256, to which Worcestershire replied with 27 for one in eight overs.

As usual this season, it seemed easier to score runs down the order and Liam Plunkett, harshly dropped down to No 10 behind Ashley Noffke, played well for his 37 as Durham staged a mini-revival from 141 for six.

Bad light halted play for 45 minutes at 5pm, and with more showers forecast today after the first day's washout Durham are going to have to bowl exceptionally well to have a chance of their first championship win at New Road.

Acting captain Dale Benkenstein won the toss, but it cannot have been an easy decision to bat under grey skies with moisture still around.

Durham's struggle to maintain their early season form continued as Vaas, the Sri Lankan left-armer, swung the ball in to have both openers lbw.

Paul Collingwood and Gordon Muchall then put on 52 in 13 overs before falling in successive overs, and the only other stand of note was 43 for the seventh wicket between Gareth Breese and Mustard.

That ended when Breese went for a second run to long leg, where Vaas's bullet-like throw hit the stumps direct to beat the Jamaican's desperate dive for the crease.

Most of the other batsmen were undone by good bowling, although Collingwood drove Zimbabwean left-arm spinner Ray Price to mid-on and Mustard cut Kabir Ali to gully.

Chairman of selectors David Graveney was present and observed that Collingwood seems short of runs going into the one-day international series.

Yesterday's exit for 26 was disappointing as he had battled hard to get through Vaas's opening spell and was beginning to find runs comfortably enough without going looking for them.

Also on the ground was Academy director Rod Marsh, and both he and Graveney would have been interested to watch Mustard and Plunkett bat.

The wicketkeeper was off the mark first ball with an off-driven four off Mason and there were more meaty drives and pulls before he got out rather carelessly.

The most impressive of the top order batsmen was Gordon Muchall, but since being run out for 82 in the first match at Leicester he has been unable to convert good starts into half-centuries.

He and Nicky Peng, who was trying hard to build an innings, edged good balls from Mason to wicketkeeper James Pipe.

Nathan Astle marked his championship debut by driving Vaas wide of mid-off for four off the first ball of the match.

The New Zealander looked more secure than Jon Lewis against testing bowling but after making 11 he missed a big in-swinger from Vaas and was lbw.

Lewis eased a couple of pleasant shots through the covers before going the same way when he failed to get forward.

Benkenstein got a beauty from Kabir, which left him late and clipped the off bail, then Breese was beaten by the first ball he faced and drove the second to the cover boundary.

Although he edged Vaas just wide of gully for four, Breese was playing well by the time he was out. He lapped Price 15 yards to Vaas's right and obviously thought there was a comfortable two, only to realise halfway back that he was struggling.

Durham were 246 for nine at the break for bad light and Plunkett ensured the second batting point with a lovely back-foot four through the covers off Kabir. He ran the next ball to third man for another boundary then attempted to hook a bouncer, which struck the grille of his helmet.

Another bouncer followed and Plunkett lofted it to the man deliberately posted at deep square leg, although it didn't greatly matter as, given the lost time, Durham would have been keen to get in a few overs at their hosts.

Worcestershire brought in left-hander Steve Davies, 19 this month, for his championship debut in place of the out-of-form Stephen Peters. But Davies made only four before he played back to Noffke and edged to Mustard.

Read more about Durham here.