Moxon still has unfinished business

After agreeing a two-year extension to a contract which was due to end this year, Moxon has no worries about his immediate future. But another season like last year's would leave him wondering whether fire-eating wouldn't be a softer option.

That the former England opener is still held in high regard was shown during the winter first by Yorkshire's attempts to lure him back then by Durham extending his contract.

Moxon resisted his native county's overtures on the grounds that he didn't want to leave another job unfinished.

While admitting that the reasons for him leaving Headingley had now been removed, he added: "Durham have shown a lot of faith in me and I feel a duty to repay that. I left the Yorkshire job unfinished and I'm sure I'd regret it if I did it again."

He firmly believes that Durham's crop of home-bred talent is ready to blossom after the cruelties they endured last season through an astonishing catalogue of injuries.

"The young batsmen had some tough experiences, which should stand them in good stead, and we have signed Vince Wells to help them," said Moxon.

"He will bat in the middle order, but he could open in the one-day games and we are keen to learn from the sort of input he can provide from having won two championships with Leicestershire."

Indian paceman Javagal Srinath will be standing in for Martin Love for the first month while the Queenslander tries to break into the Australian Test side in the West Indies.

A batsman is being replaced by a bowler partly because Stephen Harmison's availability might be curtailed by the England selectors. Also, the second overseas player, paceman Dewald Pretorius, who has played in one Test, misses the first match at Taunton as he is on the South Africa A tour to Australia.

For the opening match starting on Wednesday, however, the guarantee of middle order runs suddenly looks less than cast-iron without either Love or Paul Collingwood.

Durham could be forgiven for thinking the curse is still with them after Collingwood was ruled out for six weeks with his dislocated shoulder and seamer Mark Davies was ordered to rest for ten days because of his collapsed lung.

But Moxon insisted: "We can't afford to think like that. We have to roll up our sleeves and get on with it."

Other than Pretorius, Wells, 37, is the only newcomer, although five academy products have been awarded development contracts, including England Under 19 seamer Liam Plunkett.

Jon Lewis continues as captain for a third season, and Collingwood is officially vice-captain for the first time.

This may partly be a response to the fact that he has been mentioned as a possible England one-day captain, but in any case it is an over-due step towards making Collingwood Durham's first home-bred skipper.

There is also a possibility that he will be knocking on the door of the Test team this summer, although the selectors will probably want to persevere with Kent's Robert Key and will no doubt find it within themselves to forgive Graham Thorpe for messing them around.

Lewis will be under pressure to improve on last season's championship average of 19.26 as Michael Gough and Gary Pratt shared seven half-century opening stands in the six matches he missed at the end of last season with a groin injury.

With Love and Collingwood at three and four, and Nicky Peng, Gordon Muchall and Wells also competing for middle order places, it will be a huge disappointment if Durham do not finally shake off their perennial problem of a lack of runs.

The members' Player of the Year, Gary Pratt, was the top championship scorer with 746 last season as Durham mustered a miserly 21 batting points, ten of which came in two successive matches at the end of May.

They finished 45.75 points adrift at the foot of division two with one win, and after the previous season's promotion in the National League they finished next to the bottom. Their agonies began in the first championship game, when Simon Brown and Nicky Phillips were injured.

In the second game Jimmy Daley suffered the seventh broken finger of his career and neither he nor Brown made another first team appearance. Their release severed the final link with Durham's original first-class squad from 1992.

Other than Wells, Lewis is now the oldest player at 32 and the rest are under 30, with the majority under 25.

This is highly commendable at a time when other counties continue to sign ECB-qualified Australians and South Africans and the Worcestershire staff does not include one player born within the county.

Last season's jinx was highlighted by a badly-broken finger preventing Love from batting again after his 251 at Lord's, and when Durham replaced him six weeks later with Brad Hodge, from Victoria, he quickly broke his left thumb in the nets.

Collingwood suffered knee and neck injuries, Harmison was out for six weeks with a side strain, and after a tremendous start Peng went into steep decline.

But all the adversity provided opportunities for Gary Pratt, Muchall and Davies to prove their first-class credentials, while after missing most of the first half of the season Gough finished with 616 runs at 51.3.

With pitches likely to be full of runs after the dry spring, Durham surely have enough batting talent to post competitive first innings totals.

Bowling-wise much will depend on the pacy new ball pairing of Harmison and Pretorius.

The latter played for South Northumberland last summer and impressed for Durham against Scotland, when he took a hat-trick. While that is hardly sufficient basis on which to hand him a contract, his high ranking among South African pacemen should make him a potent threat at county level.

There is plenty of choice among the back-up seamers with Neil Killeen, Davies, Ian Hunter, Nicky Hatch and Plunkett vying for one or two places. Hunter is the one with a little extra pace and the potential to bat at No 8, but he needs to last the course better than in the last two seasons, when he has faded after a bright start.

Phillips and Graeme Bridge will again compete for the spinner's place, with Gough providing back-up.

Given that Wells's best bowling days are probably behind him, Durham are still not well-blessed with genuine all-rounders and Danny Law is almost certainly in the Last Chance Saloon.

In the final year of his three-year contract and at the age of 27, he must now fulfil the enormous potential which neither Sussex nor Essex could harness as it is difficult to see a fourth county taking him on.

He has batted well in pre-season games and if his bowling returns to his 2001 standards he will be a big asset to the side.

Ground developments are continuing ahead of Riverside's first Test against Zimbabwe on June 5-9. But the chairman, Bill Midgley, felt compelled late last season to warn that it was no good developing top-class facilities without having a team to match. Now is the time to deliver.

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