DURHAM are to give Jimmy Daley the chance to prove he has a future with the county in the match against Somerset starting at Taunton today.

Either that or, with four games left,they are putting him back in the shop window on the ground where he made 88 on his first-class debut eight years ago.

He followed up with 80 not out against Lancashire in the next match and it is hard to believe that a player who will be 27 next month is still not a fixture in the side.

Broken fingers suffered when batsmen knew the Riverside as Goose Green set him back, but Durham's treatment of him hasn't helped.

He had to take a back seat when John Morris, Mark Saxelby and Jon Longley arrived in 1994, and it was a similar story when David Boon, Jon Lewis and Nick Speak came on board three years later.

Finally given a run as an opening batsman at the end of last season, he made 80 against Sussex and 105 against Essex at Colchester to earn his county cap.

But when Michael Gough's back injury gave him the chance to open again at the start of this season, like most other top order batsmen he struggled on the damp pitches.

Dropped after five matches with a top score of 16, he made four and seven when recalled on the poor pitch at Grace Road and this will be his first chance of the season to play on a surface expected to favour batsmen.

There is no doubt his confidence has taken a big knock just when he was starting to feel established. But the fact that they have preferred him to Martin Speight suggests that they have not given up on him.

With Nicky Peng and Gary Pratt on England Under 19 duty, Gough returns to open and Daley is likely to bat at six.

Durham will decide this morning whether to gamble on Steve Harmison, the other option being to include off spinner Nicky Phillips.

When the teams met at the Riverside last month the match was delicately balanced when the final day was washed out.

Like Durham, Somerset have won only two of their 12 matches, but they have lost only three and are 18 points ahead of their visitors.

Somerset are without England players Andy Caddick and Marcus Trescothick, but their main advantage over Durham is the depth of their batting.

Graham Rose made 82 batting at No 8 at the Riverside and followed up with a century against Yorkshire.

So with Taunton producing plenty of runs this summer, it could be difficult for either side to force a victory if there is any interference from the weather.

Durham (from): N J Speak (capt), J J B Lewis, M A Gough, S M Katich, P D Collingwood, J A Daley, A Pratt, N Killeen, J Wood, S J E Brown, S J Harmison, N C Phillips