Durham's season starts tomorrow with a trip to Hampshire. The Northen Echo's Tim Wellock, the only writer with the county home and away throughout the summer months, previews the campaign and speaks to Gavin Hamilton, the new recruit who is hoping this troubled days are behiind him.

IF Durham fans are expecting a big bang this season, the explosion could be triggered by a slow-burning fuse. Pre-season preparations have been hampered by the weather and the team will initially be without all four of their Test players.

Sadly, the prospect of seeing the two bowlers jointly ranked third in the world, Shoaib Akhtar and Stephen Harmison, operating in tandem is remote.

Given the amount of international cricket this summer, Durham are not counting on any County Championship action from Harmison, while Shoaib will also miss the first two games because of the Pakistan v India series.

He will also have to leave early, although it is not clear when, and after using West Indian Reon King as the initial deputy Durham will review the situation when they know who is available at the end of the season.

They might, for example, enquire about Chris Cairns' intentions as he has announced he is retiring from international cricket after New Zealand's three-Test series here finishes at the end of June.

After the one-day series in the Caribbean, the England squad will be back from the West Indies for less than a fortnight before starting hostilities against the Kiwis.

It will be interesting to see if England allow the centrally-contracted Paul Collingwood to face Andy Caddick and Richard Johnson at Taunton on May 12-15.

The next match, at home to Glamorgan, overlaps the start of the first Test at Lord's and as the next middle order batsman on the rank Collingwood might be required.

Potentially, the greatest excitement in the Durham squad will surround Herschelle Gibbs and it was a setback to suddenly discover last month that the South African opening batsman would be available for less than half the season.

A new Twenty20 competition in South Africa will delay his arrival until after May 1 if Western Province reach the final, so his Durham debut could be in the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy tie at home to Sussex on Wednesday, May 5.

He will manage only six championship games before leaving on July 12 for South Africa's tour of Sri Lanka.

It had been planned to bring back Martin Love in place of Gibbs at the end of the season. But although Simon Katich has gone back in front of him in the pecking order, Love is still centrally-contracted by Australia and might not be available in July.

Western Australia left-hander Marcus North, Gateshead Fell's professional for the last few years, will therefore deputise for Gibbs and has already shown his pedigree with two fluent innings against Durham University.

When Shoaib is available, he is likely to ensure that he is not over-bowled, so the effectiveness of the back-up in a squad which is three players lighter than last season will be crucial.

Martyn Moxon, in his fourth season as coach, admits that the prospect of teaming up the world's fastest bowler with one of the planet's most exciting batsmen in Gibbs is "very exciting."

"If our two overseas men perform as we know they can it's going to be very interesting," said Moxon. "In fact, if all the 'ifs' come together it could be an exciting season.

"Two of the question marks are over are new all-rounders, Gareth Breese and Gavin Hamilton. But again if they perform up to their capabilities they will help to give us a very good balance.

"Durham have always favoured home-produced talent and we have made progress in the last few years, but there was an area that needed strengthening and we felt Gareth gave us the opportunity to do that."

In the squad of 18 - three fewer than last year - 13 are local lads. Breese, an off-spinning all-rounder who has played in one Test for the West Indies, qualifies through his British parents. He was appointed captain of Jamaica for this year's Carib Beer Cup, but missed the latter stages of their progress to the final with a broken arm.

Vince Wells announced two months ago that he was departing after one season with Durham to start a business in Kent, but they have retained his registration in case of emergency rather than sign a replacement.

Moxon is also maintaining contact with Michael Gough, the former England Under 19 captain who, at 24, announced at the end of last season that he did not wish to fulfil the final year of his contract because he was no longer enjoying the game.

He has played UniBond League football with Spennymoor during the winter and intends to play league cricket for Hartlepool this summer.

Without Collingwood there is a strong onus on Gary Pratt, Nicky Peng and Gordon Muchall, all 21 or 22, in the middle order.

Moxon said: "We are looking for our young batsmen to kick on and if they do we should get enough runs. It would help if we had Paul Collingwood and if he's not in the Test team I think the selectors will want him to play some first-class cricket."

Jon Lewis, in his eighth season with the club and fourth as captain, has been awarded a benefit but will not allow it to distract him from the task of continuing the team's progress.

Durham finished fourth from the bottom last season in both second divisions, which in the championship at least represented a significant improvement. Their tally of wins rose to five from one in 2002.

With three games left, all against fellow contenders, they had a chance of promotion. But they lost them all, taking only two batting points from the three matches for a final total of 31, which was again seen as inadequate.

Lewis regained his form in the first half of the season and Gary Pratt passed 1,000 first-class runs for the first time as well as being the leading run-scorer in the National League (sponsored this year by Tote Sport) with 510 at an average of 42.5.

Last season's highlights were provided by a double over Yorkshire, who had never previously lost to Durham in the championship, a record-breaking innings of 273 by Love against Hampshire, and the excitement generated for half a season by Shoaib.

Starting in early July, he clearly paced himself but his final statistics were impressive. He had 34 championship wickets at 17.05 and 17 in the National League at 13.17.

The low point of the season came when Michael Kasprowicz had Durham rocking at 44 for seven in the final match. He has recently been back in the Australian Test team and such is his stranglehold over the Durham batsmen they will be praying he is absent on Test duty when they play Glamorgan.

Apart from the highly-promising Liam Plunkett, the bowling as a whole showed little progress last season, although Graeme Bridge took his belated chance to prove himself a better all-round prospect than Nicky Phillips.

After six modest seasons since joining from Sussex, off-spinner Phillips was released along with Ian Hunter, Nicky Hatch, Danny Law, Ashley Thorpe and Chris Mann, who never made a first team appearance because of injury.

While all-rounder Ian Pattison and pacemen Plunkett and Graham Onions have been promoted to the senior staff, six academy products are now on development contracts.

They include opening batsman James Lowe and off-spinning all-rounder Gary Scott, who have both made one championship appearance.

The others are England Under 19 all-rounder Mark Turner, Teessider Alex Roberts, leg-spinner Dave Barrick and batsman Kyle Coetzer, who has played for Scotland in the National League.

The leisure centre which was under construction last summer and provoked the row with members which contributed to the resignation of chairman Bill Midgley is now complete and work is about to begin on the long-awaited indoor school.

Bob Jackson remains as chairman and Durham have a new president in Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. He is said to be keen to be more than a figurehead and is excited by the challenge. So say all of us.

Read more about Durham County Cricket Club here.