THE sublime weather at Riverside yesterday provided the perfect incentive for lengthening the cricket season. Unfortunately the standard of play did not.

At least not until Paul Collingwood and Gary Pratt ended a period of mayhem which had seen 13 wickets fall in 41 overs on a blameless pitch.

Replying to Glamorgan's 270, Durham were 11 for three inside three overs, but the fourth-wicket pair put on 102 in 19 overs, with Pratt passing 1,000 first-class runs for the season.

He remained unbeaten on 58 with Durham on 142 for four when bad light ended play with 2.4 overs remaining.

Needing 11 to reach his target, Pratt all but played on for four as Michael Kasprowicz threatened to continue his habit of wreaking havoc against Durham.

After taking Durham's last nine wickets in the defeat at Cardiff, he removed Jon Lewis with the second ball of the innings and also had Nicky Peng caught by century-maker Mark Wallace in his second over.

With Martin Love edging the one decent ball of David Harrison's opening over to the wicketkeeper, Durham were on the rack and after Pratt's narrow escape Collingwood edged Harrison just wide of second slip.

But they quickly settled and when Darren Thomas replaced Harrison Pratt hit his second ball through the covers off the back foot for the four which took him to the 1,000 landmark.

He then upper-cut Kasprowicz to third man for six, while Collingwood began to play some glorious strokes square of the wicket on the off-side off front and back foot.

He had hit nine fours in his 62-ball half-century when he played back to an excellent ball from Harrison, which left him and gave Wallace his fourth catch.

After winning the toss, Glamorgan began as though they had every intention of clinging on to their slender hope of promotion. But it seemed they must have heard about Damien Martyn's deeds at Headingley as they suddenly lost the will to fight and surrendered all their wickets between the over before lunch and the over before tea.

Riverside's biggest opening stand of the season, 127, looked the ideal platform for full batting points. Anything less was no good and by the time they had lost their last seven wickets for 57 runs promotion was out of the question.

Durham's hopes of going up had vanished with successive defeats at Northampton and Bristol and they performed in the morning session as though they had been drained of all motivation.

The natives grew restless as they dropped Wallace on 36 and 44, allowing the wicketkeeper to complete his third first-class century. It was his second of the season, both against Durham, and he went on to a career-best 121.

Accompanied by Queenslander Jimmy Maher, a pair of left-handers was almost guaranteed to cause problems for Durham as they have struggled against this breed - particularly the Australian variety - for most of the season.

Wallace joined Aussies Michael Di Venuto, Mike Hussey and Phil Jaques, who have all made two centuries against Durham this year.

Durham left out Liam Plunkett and Nicky Phillips and brought in Neil Killeen and Mark Davies, who sat out the match at Bristol.

With Shoaib Akhtar sending down only two short, wicketless spells on a pitch more suited to gentler seam bowlers, Killeen was the pick of the Durham attack.

It was surprising that Graeme Bridge bowled only one of the first 55 overs before coming on at 213 for four and finishing with three for 26.

There were two wickets each for Killeen, Davies and Vince Wells, who was preferred to Gordon Muchall, while another left-hander, David Hemp, made a cultured 36 before running himself out.

There was a little bit in the pitch for the seamers and Durham were unlucky that on the few occasions when they did find the edge in the morning the catches didn't stick.

Wells was the bowler both times when Phil Mustard put down Wallace and Collingwood's juggling act at first slip ended in failure.

Then Maher, on 34, got a leading edge off Collingwood which lobbed just short of Killeen at mid-off.

Both had nine fours in their 50s and Maher, initially restrained, was starting to play in more carefree fashion when he shaped to drive Davies wide of mid-on and lost his middle stump for 63.

Other than Hemp, no other batsman provided any support for Wallace, with Matthew Maynard making only two scoring strokes - both pulled sixes off Davies.

Wallace had faced 182 balls and hit 23 fours when Killeen moved one across him to induce an edge to Mustard.

Bridge took a good return catch diving to his right to remove Robert Croft, while his other two wickets resulted from poor shots.

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