DARREN Thomas is hardly one of the sultans of swing, yet he plunged Durham into dire straits yesterday.

The 27-year-old Glamorgan seamer had a spell of seven for 19 as Durham recovered from a nightmare afternoon with a gutsy performance in the evening, led by excellent bowling from Mark Davies.

From the relative comfort of 120 for two, eight wickets went down for 42 straight after lunch and the woes continued with some ill-directed bowling and three dropped catches.

The misses cost Durham about 50 runs but, more importantly, wasted the chance to make further inroads while conditions were favourable for swing bowling.

The cooler evening sunshine should have turned the tide back in the batsmen's favour but with Davies taking two for 12 in 11 overs Durham improved and Glamorgan closed on 117 for five, 45 behind.

The fall of 15 wickets on the first day will trigger the obligatory call to the pitch inspectorate, but there would be more cause to report the batsmen to Lord's than a Cardiff strip of little menace.

Although Thomas took eight for 50 for England A against Zimbabwe in Harare three years ago, he had never taken more than five wickets in a championship innings before and his 33 wickets in the competition last season came at an average of 50.54.

After Glamorgan put Durham in, Thomas bowled into a chilly wind in the morning and barely troubled the batsmen as he struggled to find his line, particularly against left-hander Gary Pratt.

But the wind dropped during lunch, the temperature rose, the ball began to swing and Thomas needed only 8.2 overs to polish off the Durham innings.

Six of his victims were caught in the arc between wicketkeeper and gully, while last man Neil Killeen was bowled.

The only player who looked at all comfortable against him was the other left-hander, Andrew Pratt, who was patently lbw at the other end when Michael Kasprowicz brought one back at him.

While Thomas bowled well at the right-handers, the resistance was feeble, again underlining the general fallibility of English batsmen against the swinging ball.

It was still swinging when Glamorgan went in, and Simon Brown would have revelled in the conditions. But Killeen, Ian Hunter and Paul Collingwood couldn't put the ball in the right place, while Davies was not called upon until 29 overs had been bowled.

Wholehearted as ever, Davies proved the pick of the bowlers and fully deserved his two wickets.

After Martin Love with 71, the only Durham batsmen in double figures were Gary Pratt (16) and Collingwood (15).

Skipper Jon Lewis went in the fifth over when he shaped to play Kasprowicz to leg and readjusted too late to avoid giving a low return catch.

Love was off the mark third ball with an on-driven four off his fellow Queenslander and a succession of drives through the off-side followed as he dominated a stand of 61.

When medium-pacer Adrian Dale replaced Thomas into the wind two fours flew past mid-off in his second over then Mark Wallace, standing up, pulled off a brilliant take well down the leg side.

England Academy paceman Simon Jones came on for Kasprowicz and his pace off a ten-yard run-up surprised Love, who edged his third ball wide of the slips for four.

Although Pratt had been able to leave most of Thomas' early offerings, he never looked settled and his only four came when he drove Dale wide of mid-off with his score on ten in the 20th over.

Jones' pace proved his undoing as two bouncers were followed by a ball banged in just short of a length, which reared to take the shoulder of the bat and lobbed to gully.

Love reached 50 off 69 balls and Collingwood moved comfortably to 15 at lunch, only to push forward and edge to second slip in the second over after the break.

Love was on the back foot when Thomas found his edge four overs later, and in his next over the late swing had Nicky Peng taken at third slip when he was aiming in the direction of square leg.

Gordon Muchall didn't seem to agree with the decision when he was given out caught behind and two balls later Hunter sliced to gully.

The end was swift and the clatter of wickets looked set to continue as home skipper Steve James shouldered arms in the second over of the reply and was lbw to Hunter.

The left-handed pair of David Hemp and Ian Thomas then led a charmed life as Graeme Bridge, Gary Pratt and Peng all put down sharp chances between second slip and backward point.

Hemp was on 11 when he escaped and in the next over he picked up Hunter for six over mid-wicket.

Collingwood came on first change and Thomas, on seven, edged his first ball low to Peng and was rewarded with three runs.

After the dreadful session Lewis called his players into a huddle before they left the field for tea and there was a marked improvement afterwards as Killeen nailed Hemp lbw and Davies struck in his fourth over.

Thomas played back when he should have been forward and the ball shot through to give Graham Burgess the easiest of lbw decisions.

Davies got past Dale's bat several times as the all-rounder took six overs to get off the mark and Michael Powell was also troubled by the same bowler.

There was a late bonus for Durham when Dale tried to force Hunter away off the back foot and chopped the ball into his stumps. With five overs left Kasprowicz came in as nightwatchman and promptly edged Davies to Andrew Pratt.

Read more about Durham here.