IT WAS a cruel season for Durham. Murphy's Law and Sod's Law seemed to apply from the first match, and where was Danny Law when they needed him?

In the first ten seasons at least one batsman had always made 1,000 first-class runs, but this time Gary Pratt was top scorer with 746.

Prior to 2001 at least one bowler had always taken 50 first-class wickets, but after Law (Danny) topped the charts with 42 last year, this time Neil Killeen led the way with a mere 37. And this was in a season when Martin Saggers took 83 for Kent. Durham released Saggers in 1998 and the following season Stephen Harmison took 64 wickets, Simon Brown 63 and Killeen 58 in only 12 games.

They also had John Wood and Melvyn Betts chipping in when fit.

The bowling has never been as potent in the last two years, and in many ways is more worrying than the batting, where at least the potential is clear.

But it was the batting, as so often in the past, which lay at the root of Durham's troubles this season as they mustered a miserly 21 bonus points, and ten of those came in two successive games at the end of May.

Durham enforced the follow-on in both those matches, against Gloucestershire and Middlesex, with Martin Love scoring 78 and 251. But he didn't bat again in the championship, breaking a finger in the sixth match when trying to take a slip catch.

Six weeks later he had not recovered so Durham brought in Brad Hodge as a replacement and after playing in one match he broke his left thumb in the nets.

That seemed to sum up a season of astonishing casualties, and they still hadn't finished as skipper Jon Lewis developed a groin injury which forced him to miss the last six matches.

Paul Collingwood and Law played in only five championship games, Jimmy Daley's career was ended by a broken finger in the second match and Brown's by a side strain in the first.

Graeme Bridge and Nicky Phillips missed half the season with broken fingers, Nicky Hatch had an Achilles problem, and Nicky Peng went into steep decline after a tremendous start which featured a superb championship hundred at Derby. The result of all this was that Durham finished 45.75 points adrift at the foot of Division Two after 11 defeats out of 16.

And after the previous season's promotion in the National League they won only two of their first 11 games and three wins from the last five came too late to save them from second bottom place.

Just as after their last pre-season tour to South Africa in 1995, when they lost 13 out of 17 championship games, it was tempting to say they might as well have gone to South Shields.

But we can't underestimate Murphy's Law - anything that could go wrong did go wrong - and out of all the gloom emerged three bright lights while another which had threatened to be extinguished was glowingly rekindled.

The emerging trio were Gary Pratt, Gordon Muchall and Mark Davies, while the resurrected star was Michael Gough, who missed most of the first half of the season but finished with 616 runs at 51.3.

After his promising start, Gough had suffered a difficult two years, but his hard work and dedication paid off as he began to look like a master of his craft.

In the last six matches he shared seven half-century opening stands with Pratt, whose brilliant ground fielding also helped to earn him the members' vote as Player of the Year in succession to his brother Andrew, who was the one ever-present player in the championship.

Muchall began as though to the manor born, contributing 127 a stand of 251 with Love at Lord's, and his 254 in an Under 19 Test against India helped to earn him a call-up to the ECB Academy this winter.

Davies, whose 2001 season was ended by a collapsed lung, returned after an operation to make a promising first-class debut and often proved the most accurate bowler as he retained his place almost throughout the season.

While off-the-field benefits were clear, any playing improvement in Harmison resulting from his winter with the academy was initially difficult to detect.

He had only just recovered from a shoulder injury at the start of the season, however, and three weeks later he developed a side strain.

There was still little in his figures on his return to justify a Test call-up, but he performed well enough on his debut against India at Trent Bridge and by the end of the season was looking more worthy of his Ashes tour place.

His five for 65 at Bristol in the final match was just reward for accurate, hostile bowling, and while his Ashes call-up is already a big feather in Durham's cap, it will be even better if he can shake up a few Aussie batsmen. Collingwood was sadly missed, first through a knee injury, then England one-day duty, and finally a neck problem, which also forced him to miss the ICC Trophy in Sri Lanka.

His 190 for Durham against Sri Lanka and his maiden one-day century against Nottinghamshire showed what he was capable of, but it is to be hoped that his neck problem does not threaten his future as a bowler as Durham remain very short of all-rounders.

Law was crucial to the balance of their side, but he had a back injury at the start of the season, bowled poorly when he did come into the side and was ignored for the last five games.

Described by Desmond Haynes during his time as Sussex coach as the most talented young player in England, Law probably has one season left in which to fulfil his potential.

Durham could have brought the wholehearted Graeme Welch back to his native county, but seemed to believe they could make Law see the light when two other counties had failed. Unless he comes good in the final year of his three-year contract it is difficult to imagine anyone else taking him on.

The one championship win was against Derbyshire at Durham's happiest hunting ground, Darlington. They would have beaten Gloucestershire at the Riverside but for Jack Russell's dogged resistance, and also went very close at Derby and Northampton.

But since that memorable win against Surrey at the start of the 2000 season, Durham's only championship win at Chester-le-Street came courtesy of Nottinghamshire's declaration on June 2 last year.

Other sad notes at the end of the season came with the departure of Brown and Daley, severing the final links with the original first-class staff from 1992. Marc Symington was also released and James Brinkley asked to go in mid-season, when it was clear that the club preferred to develop their younger bowlers. Next season Durham will have Love and South African paceman Dewald Pretorius as their two overseas players.

Given better luck with injuries they can field a top six reading: Gough, G Pratt, Love, Collingwood, Lewis, Muchall or Peng and there should be enough talent there to put much more competitive totals on the board.

Read more about Durham here.