Dramatic win for Dynamos

Kent were coasting at 170 for three in the 38th over, needing only 20 to win, then Durham's new overseas men Nathan Astle and Ashley Noffke recovered from undistinguished starts to bring about a dramatic transformation.

Astle took two wickets then Noffke came back for his last two overs and took three for two, leaving Neil Killeen to bowl the final over with Kent needing six runs with two wickets left.

They got four off four balls then Simon Cook was bowled off his pads, bringing in former Durham player Martin Saggers to face the last ball with two needed.

He tried to flip it to fine leg, but missed and the ball went through to Phil Mustard with Durham happy to concede one bye.

Kent were the one county Durham had never beaten in one-day combat, and the hosts will be at a loss to fathom how they managed to lose this one after South African Test all-rounder Andrew Hall put them them within sight of a comfortable win.

Hall, who played for the old Durham Board XI while a club pro with Burnmoor, removed three of Durham's top four and conceded only 17 runs in 8.5 overs.

He then catapulted Kent towards Durham's total of 189 - they were all out with one ball left - by making 72 off 76 balls.

Noffke's late heroics were in stark contrast to his earlier efforts when he came on after Liam Plunkett had taken two wickets with Kent on 40 for two after ten overs.

Noffke started with a wide, Hall cut and cover drove his next two balls for four, another wide followed and the over cost 14.

The Queenslander improved considerably but wasn't helped in his third over when Astle missed a routine slip catch with Matthew Walker on 14 and the chunky left-hander went on to make 58.

Astle was at second slip, where Mike Hussey had previously been at the heart of the best sequence of slip catching in Durham's first-class history.

It wasn't so much that Durham missed Hussey's captaincy as that individual performances were not up to scratch until the tide suddenly turned.

It seemed Astle had come on to bowl too late at 123 for two after 27 overs. But he kept things very tight with his medium pace, then struck in his sixth and seventh overs.

Darren Stevens drove carelessly to cover, then Walker was lbw playing across the line and Astle finished with two for 21 in his nine overs.

Noffke came back for the 41st over with 13 needed and had Justin Kemp caught at second slip with his first ball then pinned David Fulton lbw with the fifth.

In Noffke's final over Irish wicketkeeper Niall O'Brien recklessly slogged a high catch, which Plunkett coolly held at mid-on.

Kent needed nine off two overs and with Astle conceding only three the scene was set for Killeen's impressive finale.

It had looked as though Durham's score was about 30 light. If they expected the ball to come on to the bat on their first trip of the season to the deep south they were disappointed.

The pitch was lighter in colour than anything else they have played on this year, but it lacked pace. It was, however, easier to bat on than when they visited this verdant venue for a championship match five years ago, when the ground had been flooded and the game was over in two days.

The only batsmen to pass 16 for Durham were Nicky Peng with 50 and Mustard with 32 off 25 balls, which included four sixes. His other runs came from eight singles.

Five middle order wickets were carelessly surrendered, one to a run-out and four to ill-advised strokes, which left Durham struggling to bat out their overs.

With the eighth wicket falling in the 41st, they mustered only 17 runs in the last five overs, when wickets in hand usually produce at least 40.

Peng looked set to build an uncharacteristic innings. He often starts with a few glorious strokes then gets out, but this time he seemed prepared to combat flawed timing by accumulating in ones and twos after a brace of early boundaries.

Things were starting to come right when, on 32, he pulled medium pacer Kemp for six in the 25th over and two overs later he followed a classy clip to the mid-wicket boundary with a straight-driven four.

A swept single off former Durham University left-arm spinner Rob Ferley took him to 50 off 75 balls, but he faced only four more before shaping to drive a ball from Hall which nipped in just enough to have him lbw.

It was an especially bad time to get out as Peng had run out acting captain Dale Benkenstein in the previous over, calling him for a single to cover to end a promising stand of 48.

Initial difficulties after Durham chose to bat were caused by well-controlled away swing from Saggers and Cook.

Saggers beat Jon Lewis three times in the opening over and half of Astle's eight runs had come from overthrows when he edged Cook to first slip.

Hall came on at 45 for one after ten overs and whereas the openers had moved the ball away he dipped it in at a skiddy pace and Durham didn't score off him until his 16th ball.

By that time he had bowled Lewis through an off drive and when Paul Collingwood tried to break his stranglehold by advancing down the pitch his attempt to go over the top resulted in a simple catch to mid-on.

It was a surprise when Hall was replaced after four overs by fellow South African, Kemp, vastly inferior bowling allowed Peng and Benkenstein to build their stand.

Then the captain's run-out triggered the fall of three wickets for five runs, with Gordon Muchall sweeping Ferley to deep mid-wicket to make it 119 for six when Mustard went to the crease in the 32nd over.

His first four runs came from singles then he drove Kemp for a straight six and in the next over lifted Ferley into the ground's famed rhodedendrons over long-on and swept him for another six.

Saggers was recalled for Ferley in the 38th over and his second ball disappeared into the marquees over long-off. But when Mustard drove wide of off stump at the next ball he got an inside edge and O'Brien took a good, low catch.

Gareth Breese had made 15 off 27 balls when he lofted a drive straight to deep cover, then Noffke missed an attempted pull off Ferley and was bowled.

That left Plunkett and Neil Killeen to pick up whatever crumbs they could from the last two overs and Plunkett had a cracking cover drive off Hall in his 11 before Killeen was run out going for a suicidal single off the penultimate ball.

The problem of Killeen having insufficient bowling again surfaced when Hall hit him for three fours in the seventh over of the reply.

Noffke replaced him and initially fared no better, and by the time Hall had reached a 46-ball half-century Kent were well on their way.

He had hit ten fours when his stand of 97 with Walker ended in the 29th over with a catch swept to Benkenstein off Breese.

The off-spinner should have had another wicket, but Peng dropped Fulton at deep mid-wicket on 13. It didn't matter and Durham move on for another totesport match at The Oval today in tremendous spirits