AFTER ending their run of five defeats against Hampshire on Sunday, Durham go into tonight's floodlit match against Sussex at Riverside aiming to finish their National League programme with a run of five wins.

With Scotland now ninth, the other four bottom teams will face each other, rather than a minor county, in the opening skirmishes of next year's C & G Trophy.

Durham moved above Scotland and Somerset into fourth bottom place on Sunday, but they remain ten points adrift of fifth-placed Nottinghamshire.

Although they lost under lights at Hove by eight runs last month, Durham should be confident of avenging that defeat against a team now concentrating solely on winning the Frizzell County Championship.

Sussex are top of division one in the four-day game and bottom of division two in the one-day league.

In the fifth season of floodlit cricket Durham officials are still waiting for an exciting encounter as three have been low-scoring affairs, with Durham losing two of them, while two years ago they thrashed Hampshire after amassing 259 for six.

Martin Love made 89 and Paul Collingwood 84 on that occasion and something similar would go down well tonight after Sunday's disappointing lack of runs.

Durham are likely to field an unchanged team, although Gordon Muchall could come in for Ashley Thorpe.

That depends on whether Durham wish to prolong the opportunity they are giving Thorpe to prove he is worthy of an extension of his two-year contract.

He has batted at two and three in his two recent one-day appearances when it would probably be kinder to give him a chance in the middle order.

Play starts at 4.10, but the gates will be open at 2pm and the second heat of the Power Cricket Speed Challenge will start at 2.30.

The six fastest bowlers will join the top six from Sunday's heat in the final, which will be held in the middle during the interval between innings at 7pm.

From an entry of more than 100 Plawsworth's John Gott won Sunday's heat when he was timed at 76.1 mph.

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