FOR the second time in just over a year the England and Wales Cricket Board wasted around £500 yesterday by sending pitch inspector Raman Subba Row to Chester-le-Street.

As on the previous occasion, he was able to watch the better batsmen playing comfortably on a pitch which carried precious little of the blame for the previous day's calamities.

Unfortunately for Durham, this meant that Derbyshire, with a target of 224, were able to ease to their first championship win since beating Durham at Derby a year ago.

On that occasion skipper Dominic Cork turned the game with a double century, and this time his deputy, Michael Di Venuto, proved the match-winner.

The Tasmanian left-hander took six catches and totally dominated Durham's bowlers on his way to 111, his highest score in two years with Derbyshire.

He limped off with a groin injury with the score on 159 for two and will miss tomorrow's Norwich Union League clash.

Durham fought back, reducing Derbyshire to 203 for six, but Chris Bassano's 70 not out carried them to a four-wicket win with 2.5 overs of the third day's allocation remaining.

Although born in South Africa of an English mother, Bassano also plays for Tasmania. He recently returned from a family bereavement but in three previous matches he had a top score of 186 and currently tops the division two batting averages.

Quite apart from being without three key bowlers in Simon Brown, Neil Killeen and Danny Law, Durham were unlucky on two counts.

First, Jon Lewis's decision to bat on winning the toss for the first time in ten games backfired because Durham had to start their second innings while conditions were still difficult.

Had some of the top four still been available to bat yesterday things would have been different, but once Martin Speight had surrendered without addition to his overnight 43 a Derbyshire win was always likely. Andrew Pratt's excellent unbeaten 68 merely confirmed that.

Durham's second misfortune involved the comings and goings of umpire Nigel Cowley, who was feeling ill. On his two visits to the Riverside he has been most reluctant to uphold lbw appeals, and during his brief time in the middle yesterday he astonished Nicky Hatch by turning one down - a decision with which Hawkeye would surely not have agreed.

It came early in Derbyshire's innings, and although Steve Stubbings made only 14 the total had reached 44 before his was the first wicket to fall, and Derbyshire had their platform for victory.

Derbyshire provided three deputies for Cowley, all standing at square leg while John Steele umpired at both ends.

First 12th man Adrian Marsh did the job, then physio Craig Ranson took over for one over when Marsh was needed for fielding duties because Karl Krikken developed a migraine.

Cowley briefly returned before being replaced for the rest of the day by visiting scorer John Brown, a qualified umpire.

None of the replacements were called on to make a decision, although both Di Venuto and Stubbings would have been involved in tight run-out decisions early in the innings had the throws hit the stumps.

Durham's chances were not helped by requiring James Brinkley, who took six for 14 in Derbyshire's first innings, to bowl a 12-over stint from the wrong end.

Derbyshire began the day by switching their bowlers around so the cross-wind favoured Kevin Dean's swing and he took four wickets to finish with six for 73.

Brinkley did not enjoy this assistance for the out-swing which caused all the damage on Thursday and when he switched ends after tea the wind had died.

He had Stubbings caught behind and Hatch had Luke Sutton lbw to make it 67 for two.

But by that stage Di Venuto was going so well that Bassano initially merely had to keep him company. Di Venuto had 96 out of 129 at tea and most of the 17 fours in his 132-ball hundred came from cover drives and pulls.

Once he had retired Hatch returned with an excellent spell, having Rob Bailey caught at first slip and pinning Graeme Welch lbw. Ian Hunter, who was out to two poor shots and to this point had bowled six overs for 50 runs, finally made a contribution when his throw from long-on ran out Krikken.

Lewis then gambled by giving Hunter the chance of further redemption and he had Trevor Smith caught by Pratt to make it 203 for six. But Hunter posed no problems for Bassano, who finished the match with his ninth four.

The consolations for Durham were that Subba Row recommended that no action be taken with regard to the pitch (surprise, surprise) and Gary Scott showed great promise in sharing a stand of 63 with Pratt.

The debutant played two cracking cover drives and impressively whipped a four in front of square off the back foot on his way to 26.

He then gave Di Venuto his sixth catch of the match at second slip and four wickets went down for ten runs, all to Dean.

Hunter chipped to mid-on, Graeme Bridge's struggles with the bat continued as he was bowled off his pads and Brinkley played-on first ball.

Not for the first time Hatch showed the other tail-enders how to perform as he contributed 17 to a last-wicket stand of 46.

Pratt had hit 13 fours in his 91-ball innings, several of them cracked through the off side off the back foot.

Unfortunately, in converting his third championship 50 into his career-best score, he confirmed that Durham were in for a much tougher time in the field than on the previous day.

Durham will have Nicky Peng and Danny Law back for tomorrow's game as they attempt to stay in the NUL promotion frame