Durham Diary

This even more unlikely scenario has come about because plans are well advanced for Australia to play a Super Series in October next year against the RoW. There would be a six-day Test and three one-day matches.

As the world's highest ranked fast bowler, Harmison is the most likely England player to feature. In fact, his only compatriot with a chance of being selected on current form is Andrew Flintoff, and with South Africans Shaun Pollock and Jaques Kallis still ahead of him in the all-rounder stakes he is a long shot.

The team would obviously include Muttiah Muralitharan, unless he opted out again because of the Aussies' chucking allegations, and the batsmen would include Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Rahul Dravid and probably Gibbs.

That leaves room for the Ashington and Rawalpindi Expresses to open the bowling, although the Pakistani will need to stoke up his boilers again as Harmison has been quicker than him recently.

Shoaib's last appearance for Durham was a Sky-televised match at Hove, in which he generally bowled at 89mph. Twice when he was riled and emitted an audible grunt on delivery he reached 92, while the speed gun clocked Harmison at 96 in the one-day international at Riverside.

IT WAS clear that Harmison was doing his level best in the England v New Zealand match on his home ground to compensate for the appalling efforts of the batsmen.

The match was over in about half the scheduled time, but the consequent loss of beer sales was not as damaging to Durham as might have been feared. That's because since bringing in Azure as contract caterers they take a percentage of the income rather than the full amount.

There have been no criticisms of the pitch for the one-day international, with England admitting that they simply batted badly.

THERE'S no accounting for taste, but Shoaib always seemed to have quite a female following, and the ladies might be pleased to know that his temporary replacement has worked as a male model.

Andy Blignaut, who arrives on Wednesday, sat out the 2001-2 season in Zimbabwe and modelling was among the alternative careers he tried.

He returned to the Test team in August, 2002, with five for 79 against Pakistan. He opened the bowling with Heath Streak in the two Tests in England last summer, taking two for 95 at Riverside and scoring 13 and 12 batting at No 9.

Blignaut, who comes from an Afrikaner farming family, is one of the 15 players sacked by the Zimbabwe board and has signed a three-year contract with Tasmania, which he is due to take up late next month.

PAUL Collingwood won the Catch of the NatWest Series prize of £2,000, which will no doubt go into the team pool, for his leaping one-handed take at backward point to remove West Indies' Ramnaresh Sarwan at Headingley on July 1. The winners of the various prizes were selected by Sky Sports viewers.

TWO former Durham teammates enjoyed contrasting fortunes when they were involved in a bowl-out in the Minor Counties Cricket Association Cup quarter-final between Northumberland and Cambridgeshire.

The match was washed out, so five players from each side had two balls each at a set of stumps.

Northumberland were 2-1 down until Marc Symington hit the target with both his deliveries, leaving the pressure on last man Danny Law. Apparently he came in off his full run, landed the ball short of a length and it passed over the stumps both times.

EIGHT weeks have flown by since the super Saturday when Durham scored 453 for nine to win at Taunton and they haven't played on a Saturday since.

Both championship matches against Glamorgan were scheduled to finish on a Saturday, but the home game was already over and in Cardiff play was washed out. Otherwise the fixture planners, in their infinite wisdom, have left the high summer Saturdays blank. I might as well dust off my boots.

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