DURHAM briefly scented an unlikely win when they reduced Glamorgan from 115 for one to 150 for seven at sunny Sophia Gardens yesterday.

But merely by hanging around for 21 overs in an otherwise inexperienced batting line-up, Matthew Maynard held up their progress, then Darren Thomas and Alex Wharf went for their shots.

Both got after left-arm spinner Graeme Bridge, spoiling his return from a broken finger after he had bowled well in his first spell and was unlucky to take only one wicket.

Skipper Jon Lewis persevered with Bridge and off-spinner Gareth Breese even though they were posing little threat to the eighth-wicket pair, who shared an unbroken stand of 108 as the hosts closed on 258 for seven in reply to Durham's 466 all out.

Granted a full day's play today Durham might still win, but after yesterday's unbroken sunshine they will be lucky to bowl a ball if the forecast proves correct.

Had this been a four-day match it would doubtless have proved a good toss to win as the batting paradise on which Marcus North made 219 began to show some signs of low bounce.

That contributed to the second of Graham Onions' two wickets in the first three balls of his second spell as left-hander Mark Wallace shouldered arms to a ball which shot through and bowled him.

That was the point in mid-afternoon at which Durham had Glamorgan on the run, and after dominating a stand of 24 with Maynard skipper Robert Croft handed Mark Davies his 41st championship wicket with a poor shot to cover.

Davies then had Maynard lbw and remains neck and neck with Andrew Caddick at the top of the championship wicket-takers' list.

Glamorgan's afternoon tendency to self-destruct suggested they felt they needed only to see out the day, and if Durham had similar faith in the weather forecast they would surely not have batted on in the morning.

Other than allowing North to complete his double century, all they achieved in sliding from their overnight 407 for four to 466 all out was to hand Glamorgan bowling bonus points.

Durham already had a full hand of five batting points, but they wanted to press on to 500 and North drove David Harrison's first ball of the day through extra cover for four.

After that they struggled to press on at all as Harrison bowled a good spell and had Kyle Coetzer lbw, pushing forward, after the debut boy had added only five to his overnight 62.

The stand of 188 was nine short of Durham's fifth-wicket record, set by Nicky Peng and Vince Wells at Derby last year.

A thick edge through the vacant gully area gave North the three runs which took him to his double hundred, but Coetzer was out next ball.

North's best for Western Australia was 200, made against Victoria last winter, and he went past that by cutting Harrison for four, thereby equalling the score made by John Morris for Durham in the match when he was outscored by 297 by Brian Lara.

The only bigger championship scores for Durham have both been made by Martin Love - 251 at Lord's two years ago and 273 against Hampshire at Riverside last season.

North could not match the previous day's fluency and had added 29 when he holed out in the day's 20th over, trying to hit Croft over long-on and skying to deep mid-wicket. He had faced 288 balls and hit 29 fours and two sixes.

Andrew Pratt was out of sorts, probably suffering from the same virus which has afflicted Shoaib Akhtar, and played on against Harrison for nine.

The spinners did the rest, with Croft's figures going from none for 126 to three for 128. Bridge was adjudged lbw when sweeping, Davies took a stride down the pitch and edged to slip and Neil Killeen played on to Dean Cosker. The last four wickets went down for six runs and Durham had largely wasted 70 minutes' bowling time.

The pitch continued to look flat as Glamorgan's two replacement openers, Ian Thomas and Daniel Cherry, both left-handers, reached 34 off nine overs at lunch.

The only scare came when Thomas inside edged Onions for four with his score on nine.

Davies and Bridge came on after lunch and the spinner made the breakthrough in his second over, when Thomas went down the pitch and drove round a straight one.

Bridge also had good lbw shouts against both Cherry and David Hemp turned down by umpire John Steele, who then gave out Cherry in Gareth Breese's second over.

Playing only his sixth championship match after making his debut in 1998, Newport-born Cherry played across the line to be lbw for 29.

In the next over Killeen bowled Hemp for 37 with a leg-stump yorker, then had a big shout for lbw turned down when Jon Hughes padded up to the next ball.

But it wasn't long before two wickets again fell in quick succession.

Hughes tried to pull the first ball of Onions' second spell and the ball flew off the bat end back to the bowler, who took a good catch above his head.

When Wallace went two balls later Glamorgan were rocking on 121 for five, and they still looked vulnerable when Maynard walked into a straight one from Davies.

But he had blunted Durham sufficiently for Wharf and Thomas to prosper in the evening sun.

Wharf hit successive balls from Breese for six, four, two to reach his third 50 of the season and by the time Onions replaced Bridge 15 minutes from the close the pair had already put on 92.

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