DURHAM'S dreadful luck with overseas players continued yesterday when Martin Love was called up for Australia's two home Tests against Bangladesh next month.

They had barely had time to digest the news when they made a dreadful start in their Twenty20 Cup match at Headingley and went on to lose by 55 runs.

Yorkshire chose to bat and amassed the competition's highest score of 198 for four, one more than Somerset made in beating Glamorgan.

If Yorkshire weren't already assured of victory after racing to 65 in six overs, they were after Michael Lumb clobbered the last four balls of Nicky Phillips' spell for leg-side sixes.

Love expects to leave on July 9 and is likely to miss championship games against Northants, Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Somerset.

"We could have done without this," said coach Martyn Moxon, who has spent much of this week on the phone trying to finalise a replacement for Dewald Pretorius, who was injured twice during his brief stay.

"Martin thought with only six batsmen in the squad he wouldn't be needed, but Damien Martyn has been left out because of an injury."

Having already had Javagal Srinath as a temporary replacement while Love was in the West Indies with Australia, Durham will have exhausted their maximum allocation of four overseas men in a season.

Love, just back from a broken thumb, made his Twenty20 debut last night but had little chance of matching the firepower of Lumb and Stephen Fleming, who both stormed to 50 off 30 balls.

After surviving a total of four legitimate balls in his first three innings in this competition for Yorkshire, Fleming thrilled a crowd of 9,000 by hammering 58.

The New Zealand captain started limping in the 30s, but it mattered little as he kept thrashing the ball to the boundary, hitting ten fours and a six.

It was obvious when Fleming scored 114 for Middlesex at Riverside two years ago that he had a huge preference for the leg side, yet Durham repeatedly fed his strength in the early overs.

After his mauling in Wednesday's defeat by Leicestershire, Ian Hunter was unable to find a testing line against the left-handed openers.

Asked to bowl the first over, he conceded 14 with Yuvraj Singh clipping the first ball through square leg for four and Fleming pulling the fourth to the rope behind square.

Fleming then picked up Neil Killeen's third ball for a towering six behind square and with Yuvraj pulling a six Hunter had gone for 26 in two overs.

The Indian made 22 off nine balls before driving Killeen to Nicky Peng at long-off.

Lumb looked lucky to survive a big lbw appeal by Killeen before he had scored, but there was no respite at the other end as Fleming glanced Mark Davies' first ball to the fine leg boundary and took three more fours off the over.

Most of his runs came in a small arc either side of square leg, although he did produce a perfectly-timed reverse sweep and also drove two off-side fours.

He fell to the last ball of the tenth over, trying to hit Phillips over mid-wicket and skying a catch to Love at backward point.

It was in the 14th over that Lumb went berserk. He had already hit Phillips for six over square leg in his previous over, and the four successive ones were all bludgeoned over mid-wicket.

He departed in the next over when Durham gave Ashley Thorpe's gentle medium pace its first airing of the competition and Lumb skied an attempted big hit to mid-on, where Jon Lewis took a good running catch.

Phil Mustard made a couple of blunders in his glove-work, but pulled off a good stumping when Craig White lifted his back foot to give Vince Wells a wicket.

Yorkshire needed 20 off the last two overs to make 200, but Davies conceded only seven off the 19th and Matthew Wood needed to hit Killeen's last ball for six to reach the landmark. He fell inches short with a drive over extra cover.

Shellshocked Durham made an even more disastrous start with the bat than the ball as they crashed to 17 for four in the fifth over, the first three wickets falling to Ryan Sidebottom, who had none for 39 in three overs in the defeat by Lancashire.

As that was Yorkshire's second defeat they have little chance of qualifying for the semi-finals, and Durham are also now out of contention.

The sheer weight of runs confronting them was the main reason for their collapse rather than exceptional bowling.

They even had a slice of luck when Nicky Peng was dropped at backward point by the unfortunate Gavin Hamilton, who had been dropped after two ducks but had to field in place of Fleming, who had a bruised big toe.

Peng miscued the next ball to extra cover and there was no way back from 17 for four for Durham, meaning the match fizzled out, just as in Wednesday's defeat.

Love spared their blushes with 51 off 32 balls, but it was always in a losing cause and it was 96 for six in the 14th over when he was out.

Phillips produced a late flourish, which included two expertly-played reverse sweeps off Andy Gray in an unbeaten 26, and Killeen hammered a six over long-on in an unbroken stand of 35, which took Durham to 143 for eight at the close.

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