THE man sent to cover Saturday's Nottinghamshire v Durham match for the Sunday Times had been told to concentrate on Stephen Harmison on the grounds that he has a good chance of being in the squad for the first Test against Sri Lanka.

It would be fair to say that the man from the Sunday Times saw little justification for this speculation as Harmison continued to struggle for form.

As his Durham captain Jon Lewis has already observed, he is not enjoying the best of luck and for the second successive Saturday he had the misfortune to be out first ball with victory in sight.

Six runs were needed off three balls when Harmison arrived at the Trent Bridge crease, and when he was bowled by Andrew Harris Durham's hopes of qualifying for the Benson and Hedges Cup quarter-finals virtually vanished.

Lancashire's defeat by Leicestershire means Durham still have a very slim chance of qualifying by finishing third in the group if they record a convincing win in their final group game at home to Derbyshire on Monday.

They will also need Lancashire to lose to Yorkshire and Notts to lose to Leicestershire.

Although it was not such a calamitous surrender as in the championship defeat at Derby the previous Saturday, Durham's youngsters again succumbed to the pressure of chasing a very reachable target.

Needing 225, they were coasting at 88 for two when Paul Collingwood was punished for over-ambition by a brilliant catch in the 24th over.

But they still looked on course for victory with 30 needed off five overs and five wickets left. Then Marc Symington drove to mid-off, Andrew Pratt's highly sensible innings of 38 ended when he was run out, and Graeme Bridge came in too late at No 9 to retrieve the situation.

In virtually every game this season Durham have suffered at the hands of replacement overseas men or imports with EU passports, and this was no exception.

South African Lance Klusener, whose stay ends on Monday with the arrival of compatriot Nicky Boje, finally decided he had better leave his mark on Trent Bridge, while another South African, Kevin Pietersen, managed to stifle Durham with ten overs of modest off spin.

But Durham could have no complaints about Klusener taking out on them whatever frustrations he may have after his lean spell, because by his standards his innings of 68 was restrained almost to the point of selfishness.

He was run out off the last ball of the innings, but even in the last few overs he showed little inclination to go for the big shots for which he is renowned.

He pulled a Harmison long hope contemptuously for six, but hit only three fours in his 89-ball innings.

There was some excellent bowling from Bridge and Neil Killeen, but Durham could still have expected to chase at least 20 more had the real Klusener emerged from his shell.

They might also have expected to chase 300 when Darren Bicknell hit the first two balls of the match for four, off Harmison, but he was then brilliantly caught at cover by Ian Hunter, who also ran out Usman Afzaal with an accurate throw from the cover boundary.

When Killeen had the dangerous Pietersen lbw, Nottinghamshire were 38 for three and from that point they played as though 230 was the limit of their ambitions.

Apart from a couple of missed shies which might have earned run-outs, plus a dropped catch at long-on by Harmison, Durham were tigerish in the field.

But Lewis's gamble on bringing back Harmison for his last three overs with the score on 115 for four after 29 overs was not a success, and meant that Collingwood was not introduced until the 36th over.

Chris Read contributed 36 not out to a stand of 68 with Klusener as Notts finished on 224 for six, and with England's James Foster breaking an arm, both wicketkeepers in this match should be in England contention.

Read followed up with two superb right-handed catches to get rid of Nicky Peng and Martin Love, both caught off Gold Award winner Klusener.

As in the opening B and H match at Leicester, Peng looked well capable of winning the game but lacked support.

Gary Pratt was promoted to open and played impressively in contributing 18 to a stand of 37 before he went to drive Harris in the tenth over and edged to first slip.

Love never looked in touch and made four in nine overs before Klusener snared him, then Collingwood played himself in for five overs before taking a step down the pitch and casually lifting Harris over wide long-on for six.

In trying something similar off the next ball he got a leading edge but appeared to have got away with it, only for Nadeem Malik to run back from mid-off, stretch out his left hand and hold an amazing catch.

Other than Klusener's six, there were only 13 boundaries in the home innings. But the slowness of the pitch didn't stifle Peng's glittering strokes and he had nine fours in his 53-ball half-century.

He had moved on to his B and H best of 72 before Klusener moved one away off the pitch to have him caught behind, but Andrew Pratt helped Lewis maintain the required rate of just over four an over.

It was a big blow when Lewis fell for 27, pulling Pietersen straight to square leg, but Pratt still seemed to have everything under control.

The pressure began to mount in the 42nd over, when Pratt took a single off the first ball and Pietersen then bowled five dot balls to Symington.

The fall of the sixth wicket pair in successive overs proved decisive, and although Pratt looked unhappy with Bridge for declining his call for a sharp single his own initial uncertainty suggested it was risky.

Hunter was neither back nor forward in falling lbw to Pietersen, who bowled nothing like as well as Bridge but proved equally as effective.

Durham needed 17 off the last two overs and 11 off the last, and although Killeen got the target down to six he was lbw to Harris with three balls left. Harmison's demise left the in-form Bridge stranded on nine and from four B and H innings last week he now has an average of 98.

He probably would not have played but for an injury to Nicky Phillips. Other injuries have been more costly as not everyone has seized his opportunity.