Durham Diary

That's why there was no sign of the biggest cup in sport when Durham beat Yorkshire for the first time in a championship match.

The 4ft DLI Trophy has traditionally been at stake in these encounters and when Durham won coach Martyn Moxon was quick to ask: "Where's the cup?"

It once stopped play because the sun glinting off it dazzled the batsman. It must have been a refreshing change for the cup to see bright light after decades of gathering dust in a cupboard since the DLI were allowed to keep it for winning a football tournament in India for three successive years.

Originally know as the Lahore Trades Cup, it always went back to the DLI Museum after Yorkshire had won it and had been back in mothballs for the last two years because being in different divisions meant the counties didn't meet.

Perhaps it is because they will meet every year in the new mini-slog, assuming it survives, that someone at the DLI has decreed that the trophy will be contested in the Twenty20 Cup. So it will be glinting in the early evening sunshine at Headingley on Friday, June 20.

FOR the second successive Saturday Yorkshire had cause to ask how they had let one of their own slip away to Durham.

Following Liam Plunkett's five-wicket debut at Headingley, another former Middlesbrough player, James Lowe, made 80 in his debut innings against Hampshire.

It transpires that he moved from Suffolk to Northallerton at the age of three and played for Yorkshire from Under 13s upwards.

"I wasn't happy with the progress I was making so two years ago I rang Geoff Cook at Durham," he said. "They took me on trial and after a few games for the academy I played in the seconds last season," he said. "I didn't expect to get a first team chance so soon, but I felt good and I enjoyed it. When you're facing someone like Wasim Akram you can't afford to think about his reputation, you just have to stay confident and play normally."

INTERVIEWED on Radio Five Live two days before Riverside's Test baptism, Stephen Harmison hinted that Durham had put county cricket on the back burner while pursuing their international ambitions.

This must have been annoying for a local reporter who extracted much the same opinion from Harmison but ignored it in the interests of keeping the peace.

The paceman was not asked to elaborate on his outspoken observation, and by the time I get to him he will probably have been gagged.

Perhaps the Durham players weren't keen on taking home matches to Stockton and the Racecourse to give the groundsman more time to work on his Test pitch.

Or perhaps they feel the club has not shown enough ambition in its signings. They did, after all, think that they might get Craig White for this season.

But their most serious cause for complaint is that they still don't have any indoor nets, which are said to have been a priority now for several years.

The Player of the Year dinner, normally held in mid-September, was postponed last year with a view to holding it in the spring in the indoor school. However, there is still no sign of a brick being laid and chairman Bill Midgley is worried that the bureaucratic bungling attached to the Lottery funding could turn out to be more than mere delays.

SIMON Katich, once labelled "the next cab on the rank" has every intention of reversing his slide down the Australian rankings since his selection for the 2001 Ashes squad denied him a return to Durham.

It is ironic that his successor at Riverside, Martin Love, has moved ahead of him and he said: "A couple of others have sneaked in front as well.

"I just didn't make enough runs last year, but I plan to get back up there. Getting a few wickets might help. I've done a lot of bowling since moving to New South Wales."

The likeable 27-year-old left-hander quit his native Western Australia, where his career had stagnated, and looked in prime form in making 135 against Durham.

"I didn't try any harder because it was Durham," he said. "I try as hard as I can against any team. I'm reasonably happy with my form. I had a slow start, but I've been pretty consistent in my last few innings."

Katich said he was surprised to see so few players he remembered in the Durham team, but was pleased to see things were progressing well at Riverside and admitted he was lucky to be playing at another new ground.

"I've been watching the Test up there on the television. The set-up here is also very good and I'm sure they'll get a Test here in a few years."

DURHAM begin their Twenty20 Cup campaign at home to Nottinghamshire this week on Friday the 13th.

It's to be hoped it's not an ill omen as they have already suffered a run of Friday frustration. In the home games against Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, plus the match at the Rose Bowl, the Fridays have been washed out. The consolation is that Durham were in no position to win any of them.

Read more about Durham County Cricket Club here.