THE message from Durham skipper Jon Lewis, both in words and deeds, during the rain-ruined draw at Colchester was: "I am not a quitter."

Other than helping Durham to two batting points, Lewis's gutsy century counted for little in the end as his side's overall performance during the one and a half days of cricket confirmed their wooden spoon status.

There have been two occasions in Durham's first-class history when, in similarly depressing circumstances, captains have failed to see out the season.

But Lewis has no intention of throwing the towel in, saying: "I don't like giving up. I would absolutely love to carry on in the job next season and will do it as long as the club want me to.

"I noticed that Ben Smith has quit the Worcestershire captaincy and I feel a bit for him. I can see how people get to that stage, but I'm nowhere near that.

"It's tough and there have been an awful lot of disappointments this season, but I still enjoy it even if I do have a few tantrums."

Lewis underlined his fighting qualities with his 256-ball century, only to see Shaun Tait's continuing troubles set Essex opener Will Jefferson on the way to a ton off 112 balls.

"They obviously wanted to play positively to give themselves a chance of winning and Will made it look extremely easy," said Lewis.

"But my centuries usually take me five hours.

"We have talked about it and I mentioned that I need to be aware I'm going to take that long.

"There's no point me trying to score three-hour hundreds because it's not the way I play, so it was pleasing to put it into practice.

"I scored only 20 runs in the session after tea on the first day. They were bowling well and there was enough in the pitch to keep the bowlers interested, so I had to be fairly watchful.

"Then on the Friday morning Danish Kaneria bowled really well. He had me tied down in the low 90s so I had to do something and I was lucky that when I went down the pitch to hit him for six it was the one he tossed up a little higher."

Prior to his innings of 127 - his highest for three years - Lewis was averaging 22.3 in the championship this season, but felt he benefited from a day in the Grace Road indoor school last month.

"We had a day inbetween the totesport match and the championship game which we tried to put to good use," he said.

"It will be a big help to us to have an indoor school next year.

"I worked on a few things at Grace Road and technically I got a bit closer to where I wanted to be, then I felt better on Friday morning at Colchester after spending so long at the crease on the first day.

"I've missed a couple of games against Essex through injury and this was the first time I have scored runs against them.

"I didn't think it would mean much to me after all this time, but it feels good.

"My folks were watching and I got a good reception from a lot of lot of local people. I lived in Colchester for my last few years with Essex."

Lewis admitted that he had been close to leaving himself out of the team a couple of times this season, adding: "As captain you like to lead from the front.

"Opening the innings is one way you can do that, but struggling for form does not make the captaincy any easier. You have to split the jobs and I think I can still do that.

"When we walked off after Richard Johnson's hundred for Somerset I gathered the players round because we hadn't been good enough.

"I knew it was going to be tough batting out the 38 overs left in the game, so I told them we had to get some pride back in our performance.

"At least we can take something out of our season if we keep pressing for promotion in the totesport League and we are hoping Shaun Tait can find some form for the last two games.

"He's a top lad and he wants to do well for us and for himself. There's nothing wrong with his effort.

"There's obviously a lot going on in his mind about where his feet are landing.

"We have seen glimpses of the pace he can bowl at and we want him to get it right, particularly for the two one-dayers.

"It's a fine line between giving him the opportunities to get it right and doing himself more harm."

Durham will work again with Tait at Riverside today ahead of the four-day match against Hampshire starting tomorrow.

They are not inclined to cut their losses by sending him home, but coach Martyn Moxon admitted: "It's a huge worry. He's mystified by it, and after everything else which has gone wrong this season we certainly didn't need this."

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