Breese makes his mark despite Durham defeat

After his ten-wicket match haul in the win at Scarborough, Breese made his top Riverside score of 65 at the weekend before Durham ended their wooden spoon season with a six-wicket defeat by Leicestershire.

Darren Robinson sped Leicestershire safely home yesterday when he contributed 38 as they knocked off the 71 runs required for victory in 12.5 overs, despite three wickets for Liam Plunkett.

Breese's four for 93 in Leicestershire's first innings meant that he had doubled his championship tally of wickets in the last two games to 28.

"Bowling here is very different to what I have been used to," said the off-spinner. "I worked a lot with the coach on getting used to what pace I should bowl at.

"I started off bowling too slow then went to the other extreme for a couple of games and I'm sorry it's taken so long to get it right."

Breese has also taken all season to adapt to batting at Riverside, where he was averaging 8.9 in the championship prior to Saturday's knock, compared with 53 away from home.

It was a similar story for Marcus North, who averaged 16.5 at Riverside and 48.6 on his travels.

"We can't blame the pitch because other batsmen have come here and scored runs," said Breese. "But it's hard to get in here. Saturday was the first time I have settled and now I know what I need to do.

"Away from home the ball has come on to the bat a lot better, and we have the stroke-players who enjoy that. But we have to play half our games at Riverside, so we need more application."

Breese has been in regular contact with people in Jamaica over the weekend and said: "My family are safe and the friends I have spoken to. It's very wet, but as long as everybody is alive that's the important thing.

"I'll be leaving in the next few days and hope to captain Jamaica again and put into practice the things I have learnt here. I'll be back next season - I'm still very keen to make a career for myself here."

With Plunkett taking three for 27, Leicestershire would be grateful that they didn't have to make 150 yesterday, especially as they were without skipper Brad Hodge, who had returned to the Midlands because of a groin injury.

They reached 31 before losing two wickets in the seventh over. Darren Maddy drove at Plunkett and edged to Gordon Muchall at third slip and four balls later first-innings century-maker John Maunders fell for a duck. He played back and also edged to Muchall, who took a good low catch.

Plunkett twice went past Darren Stevens' outside edge in his next over, but runs flowed freely off Graham Onions at the other end.

Starting with the first ball of the day, Robinson drove three fours straight down the ground and also cover drove Onions to the boundary in his first 20 runs.

He then took 18 off Onions' fifth over with three back-foot fours and a pulled six before Muchall came on with his medium pace and had Robinson lbw on the front foot for 38.

Only six runs were needed at that point and Stevens scored five of them to finish on 19 not out, but with one needed John Sadler played back and was bowled by Plunkett for a duck.

The next ball was down the leg side to left-hander Tom New and wicketkeeper Phil Mustard fumbled it, giving Leicestershire the bye which clinched victory.

Durham had given Onions the chance to rectify his problems, but he took none for 41 in five overs.

The visitors might just have had time to win on Saturday had rain not arrived, and around 30 people turned up to witness the last rites yesterday.

Trailing by 210 on first innings, Durham slipped to 95 for four on Saturday before resistance came through half-centuries from Gavin Hamilton and Breese, plus another sparkling innings from Phil Mustard.

The wicketkeeper contributed 40 to a stand of 58 with Breese and was looking capable of giving Durham a useful lead until he tried to pull a ball from Charlie Dagnall which kept low and pinned him lbw.

From 246 for five Durham then subsided to 280 all out as the last four batsmen surrendered to the left-arm spin of Claude Henderson. Breese had hit ten fours in his 122-ball innings when he went down the pitch aiming over long-on and skied a catch to cover.

Earlier Jon Lewis, in the final innings of his four-year reign as Durham captain, made 14 before he played back and had his off stump removed by Ottis Gibson.

Fellow opener James Lowe suffered the same fate to bring together the only two Durham batsmen within sight of 1,000 first-class runs, Muchall and North.

North was left with a first-class total of 969 - 90 of them scored against Durham University - when he drove at Dagnall and edged to the wicketkeeper for 11.

Muchall was left 25 short of the 1,000 mark when he pushed half forward and was lbw to David Masters for 43, which included eight fours. As he made only five against the University, he scored 970 runs in the championship and finished top of the averages on 35.93. North was next on 31.33.

Since making 42 in his first Riverside innings against Essex in early May, Breese had a top score of 11 in 12 innings on the ground and was happy to leave the bulk of the scoring to Hamilton in a fifth-wicket stand of 93.

The former Yorkshire all-rounder completed his second half-century in successive matches off 64 balls when he drove Gibson over extra cover for his ninth four. But on 53 Hamilton pushed forward and was so palpably lbw to Gibson that he was walking before umpire Neil Mallender raised his finger.

Breese was starved of the strike as Mustard cracked eight fours in his 50-ball innings. He survived two chances into the covers, but hit the ball so hard that Masters had to retire for treatment to his hand.

After Mustard departed, Breese lapped Henderson to fine leg for three to reach 50 off 99 balls, only to lose Graeme Bridge shortly afterwards.

He top-edged a sweep to deep backward square leg, where Dagnall held a brilliant diving catch.

Neil Killeen went fourth ball, trying to sweep Henderson and dragging the ball into his stumps and the spinner finished with four for 44 when he had Onions lbw for a duck.