DURHAM took remorseless advantage of demoralised Derbyshire's woes yesterday when a record fifth-wicket stand of 197 between Vince Wells and Nicky Peng carried them to 434 for seven.

On a day when the umpires had given Derbyshire nothing, the only blemish came when Nigel Llong gave himself time to count to 100 before adjudging Peng lbw for 99.

He could have gone one run earlier when, with two men back on the boundary, he skied an attempted pull into space at square leg and had also been caught off a no-ball on 80.

But it was a cruel way to go as he was a long way forward to left-arm spinner Lian Wharton.

Quite why Dominic Cork put Durham into bat remained a mystery as they raced past their previous highest championship total of the season, 327.

Peng and Wells scored at five an over as they passed the Durham fifth-wicket record of 185 between Paul Parker and Jimmy Daley against Warwickshire at Darlington in 1993.

Peng obviously likes the Derby ground as he made 90 here two years ago and 108 last April, which remains his highest championship score.

In fact, his best score in-between was the 57 he made against these opponents at Darlington last July and his best previous effort this season was 37.

Against some very ordinary afternoon bowling, Wells also took the chance to end a lean run, converting his second championship 50 for Durham into 105. His century came off only 109 balls.

A lot of the ex-Leicestershire man's early runs came to third man, including a four off Cork when he was trying to withdraw his bat.

But once Wells had driven Wharton over long-off for six virtually everything came out of the middle of the bat, even if he didn't quite match the imperious quality of some of Peng's strokes.

One Derbyshire observer noted: "He looks like Wally Hammond every time he comes here, but doesn't seem to do much against anyone else."

As is often the case when a side hits rock bottom, nothing went right for Derbyshire other than winning the toss.

Graeme Welch, who normally performs well against his native county, joined the casualty list with a foot injury, while left-arm paceman Mohammad Ali (back) and batsmen Andrew Gait and Dominic Hewson were also ruled out.

Hewson, who suffers from an irregular heart beat, was admitted to hospital after Wednesday's floodlit defeat by Nottinghamshire and his condition was giving cause for concern. Durham's problems seemed minor by comparison as Shoaib Akhtar failed his morning fitness test on his twisted ankle, forcing Durham to settle for a seam attack of Nicky Hatch, Neil Killeen and Liam Plunkett.

Most captains would have backed their batsmen to make runs against this trio, but Cork must have fancied himself and Kevin Dean to make inroads into the Durham batting.

He was convinced he had Jon Lewis caught behind in the third over and when the Durham captain declined to walk Cork's reaction prompted umpire Mervyn Kitchen to have words with him.

There was a great deal of impassioned appealing, much of it ridiculous, and Kitchen steadfastly refused to raise his finger until giving out Graeme Bridge lbw late in the day.

Michael Gough played and missed several times and in the face of all this adversity Derbyshire's heads soon began to go down and there were three sloppy lapses in the field in the first hour.

Derbyshire's back-up seam consisted of championship debutant Neil Gunter and Tom Lungley, whose form since being named in the provisional list for next winter's ECB Academy has been shocking.

He came on first change yesterday but was removed after two overs, leaving Gunter to make a favourable impression with two of the wickets as Durham slipped from 110 for no wicket to 133 for three.

Gough went for 36, edging a drive to first slip, then Gordon Muchall missed the boat when he went down the pitch to Wharton and chipped tamely to mid-wicket.

Gary Pratt pushed at a ball from Gunter he could have left alone and edged to second slip, but Lewis remained unbeaten on 71 out of 136 for three at lunch.

It was his tenth championship half-century of the season, but he added only six in the afternoon before edging Cork to wicketkeeper Luke Sutton.

The Derbyshire captain stared after Lewis in mock amazement as he walked without waiting for the umpire's verdict.

It was Cork's 700th first-class wicket.

Things soon began to go Durham's way again as Peng collected four overthrows via a throw which ricocheted off the stumps, then Gunter went down with cramp after the first ball of his second spell and was helped from the field.

When Lungley returned Peng edged his first ball for four and square drove the next for his eighth boundary to reach 50 off 60 balls.

Wells soon forged ahead of him and the 100 stand came up in only 14 overs, with 167 runs coming in the afternoon session.

An attempted cut by Wells flew off the top edge to third man for his 17th four to bring up his hundred. But two overs later he drove a return catch to the undeserving Lungley, who claimed a second wicket when Bridge played across a full-length ball.

Phil Mustard and Plunkett kept the score rattling along and a classical drive through extra cover by Plunkett took Durham past 400, giving them maximum batting points for the first time since they made 645 for six declared at Lord's on June 1 last year.

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