Durham Diary

The Australian captain will remember Blignaut from a 27-ball half-century he scored against them in last year's World Cup.

Both arrived in this country last Wednesday and are staying just long enough for the Riverside clash before Ponting goes off to prepare for the ICC Trophy and Blignaut heads for Tasmania.

"I have signed to play for them for three years," he said. "I will go back to Zimbabwe to visit my parents, but not to play cricket.

"My parents still have their farm. It's a lot smaller than it used to be, but at least they have a roof over their heads.

"The cricket problems are mainly political. It's not so much the government doing the meddling as other guys who have their own motives. It might be to do with money but mainly they just want to obtain some sort of power.

"Even if things did settle down I can't see myself playing in Zimbabwe again. I was born there and I love the place, but I want to find some security."

Blignaut, who took his country's first Test hat-trick against Bangladesh in Harare, has been taken on by Durham as what has become known as a "Kolpak" signing.

People from countries which have trade agreements with the EU do not have to be considered as overseas players, but there was some ill feeling about Leicestershire exploiting this to sign South African Claude Henderson.

In Blignaut's case it is likely to go largely unnoticed unless Durham also land Australian paceman Shaun Tait and play both in the same match.

Blignaut could have joined up with his former Zimbabwe teammates on their mini tour of England, but said: "I had other things I wanted to sort out, and when an agent contacted me to say Durham were interested the timing suited me perfectly.

"I played in the Riverside Test last year and I remember it being a beautiful area and the people were very friendly. Hopefully I'll do well and it could be an option to play county cricket next summer."

JON Lewis would not consider himself the ideal Twenty20 batsman, but he topped Durham's averages in this season's competition largely because of the repair jobs he had to do at number five.

His two not outs - 49 at Leicester and 24 at home to Lancashire - helped him to an average of 45.5, with Phil Mustard next on 26.4. Mustard was also comfortably the highest scorer with 132 runs in five innings and his 64 at Trent Bridge remains Durham's highest individual score in the competition.

Amazingly, had there been a prize for the most sixes it would have gone to Gareth Breese, who totalled only 14 runs in his first four knocks then cleared the ropes twice in one over from Yorkshire's Australian off-spinner Andy Gray on the way to his 24 not out.

There have been four half-centuries in the competition by Durham batsmen, but the highest score in five games over two seasons at Riverside has been Nicky Peng's 49 in the opening match against Nottinghamshire last season.

That match featured a maiden by Ian Hunter, but the only maiden since by a Durham bowler came in Neil Killeen's spell of 4-1-7-4 at Grace Road two weeks ago. That was the most economical completed spell in the competition until Hampshire's Dimitri Mascarenhas beat it a few days later.

Killeen was Durham's leading wicket-taker this season with nine, but surprisingly finished as the least economical bowler after conceding 63 runs in seven overs in the last two games.

Overall he went for 6.5 an over, compared with 5.25 for Graham Onions, 5.27 for Mark Davies, 5.45 for Graeme Bridge and 6.0 for Gareth Breese. The two spinners took seven wickets each, Davies five and Onions four.

DURHAM'S win against Yorkshire last Thursday meant they won the DLI Trophy for the first time.

The world's biggest trophy was up for grabs in championship clashes between the sides until last season, when Durham beat Yorkshire for the first time in four-day combat, only to find the cup wasn't there. It had been decided it would be contested in Twenty20 meetings.