THERE was a time yesterday when ecstasy threatened to turn to agony for Nicky Peng as a wonderful century was followed by a nasty blow on his right index finger at third slip.

He retired to see the physio and after it was decided there was no break he returned to the Derby field with two fingers strapped together.

After suffering two casualties against Middlesex last week, it was a huge relief for Durham that after keeping them in the match Peng had not been ruled out of it.

His second championship century took Durham to 258, a deficit of five, and Derbyshire reached 190 for nine in their second innings.

They were reduced from 75 for one to 120 for six, with Paul Collingwood picking up three wickets, but while four edged catches were held four more were put down.

Peng and Gordon Muchall were the guilty parties at third slip, both off Stephen Harmison, while Andrew Pratt and Martin Love also missed chances.

Peng's 108 was his most responsible innings for Durham as Kevin Dean and Dominic Cork made life very difficult when Durham resumed at 102 for three.

Collingwood added only two to his overnight 40 before a full-length in-swinger from left-armer Dean had him lbw.

Muchall then survived half an hour without scoring before slicing Dean to backward point, where Andrew Gait dived to his right to hold a superb catch.

The way Dean and Cork were bowling Durham could have folded rapidly from 136 for five, but Peng was assisted by Pratt and particularly Mark Davies in a ninth wicket stand of 73.

Peng, on four overnight, showed sound judgement of when to leave the moving ball in the first hour, showing a lot of the qualities required in the opening batsman Durham need.

This contrasted vividly with an over in which he sped from 77 to 97 with five fours off left-arm paceman Mohammad Ali, who had confirmed that this is the name he wishes to be known by.

This onslaught signalled the end of a 16-over spell during which Ali worked up a lively pace and struck Peng on the head with his score on 40.

The ball squeezed under his helmet and cut his cheek, but he quickly resumed hostilities, defying the same liberal supply of short-pitched stuff with which other counties tried to unsettle him last season.

"The ball that hit him followed him and at that pace there's not much you can do about it," said coach Martyn Moxon. "I thought he played the rest of the short stuff well and showed a lot of courage. I rate his innings very highly, especially in the context of the game.

"We are talking to him about his game plan generally and he played it as he saw it. It's important for any batsman to work out his game and apply it to the situation.

"It's the sort of pitch where if you get the ball in the right areas you will get your reward and they bowled particularly well in the first hour."

Peng's only error was on 19, when he attempted an ambitious drive off Dean and edged through the vacant third slip area.

Otherwise he was a model of selectivity and when Dean's ten-over spell ended Peng greeted Jason Kerr with a handsome off drive for four followed by an exquisite clip to the mid-wicket boundary.

There was no relaxing of his concentration as he dug out a fast, swinging yorker from Ali and reached 50 off 94 balls with his seventh four.

There were two more boundaries before the five in one over came from a clip to square leg, two drives through extra cover and one straight down the ground plus a vicious pull to mid-wicket.

Cork replaced Ali and his second ball disappeared through extra cover to bring up Peng's century off 156 balls.

He was out when he tried to crack Cork away off the back foot and edged to slip, and the next two balls were dug in short at Harmison, who then drove at a fuller ball and edged to the wicketkeeper.

Davies was left on 15 not out, made off 68 balls during which he showed a sound defence.

Harmison again allowed Michael di Venuto to get off to a brisk start with several back-foot fours through the off side.

Davies eventually found the Tasmanian's edge to have him caught for 46 by Collingwood, who then produced an excellent spell of swing bowling, which he capped by bowling Cork second ball.

Neil Killeen, also finding some movement, rattled Andrew Gait's middle stump to end an innings of 35, and after a seventh wicket stand of 24 threatened to rally Derbyshire Harmison took his first wickets of the match.

He bowled Kerr with the sort of yorker he tries all too rarely these days, then was twice edged over the slips for four by Ali before having him caught at third man.

His short stuff continued to hand too many runs to Derbyshire in what could be a tight finish, including four leg byes off Dean's helmet.

The more accurate Davies had Karl Krikken lbw, but the last pair survived three overs on a day which featured one over of spin and closed 50 minutes behind schedule at 7.20.