FORMER professional footballer Keith Barker, who had played no part in the match until today and had a previous best first-class score of 31, defied Durham by making 101.

Fortunately for Durham, he departed four balls before tea, leaving them to take the last two wickets in the final session with the new ball due.

Having reached his maiden century off 152 balls, Barker pushed forward to Ian Blackwell in the next over and edged to slip, where Michael Di Venuto held his third catch of the innings.

The combination of a docile pitch and two players with something to prove frustrated Durham and the absence of Steve Harmison probably didn’t help.

Just as at the Rose Bowl in the opening match, neither seam nor spin could make any impression on the slow surface throughout a fine afternoon.

Barker, the replacement for Will Porterfield, who went off to captain Ireland against Pakistan, defied suggestions that Warwickshire were replacing a batsman with a bowler.

In nine previous first-class matches he had performed primarily as a left-arm seams bowler, but Warwickshire knew he was capable of playing strokes as they have occasionally batted him at No 3 in their one-day team.

Barker and Naqqash Tahir came together at 134 for seven in the 40th over 20 minutes before lunch and had taken the score to 251 in the 81st over when they were parted.

Birmingham-born Tahir was unbeaten on 22 at tea. Seven years after making his debut, he is a medium paced swing bowler who has never been a fixture in the side and has a first-class batting average of 14.4.

Harmison bowled five overs in the morning but looked sluggish in the field following yesterday’s back problem and he did not reappear after lunch.

Barker, born in Manchester, is a 24-year-old former Blackburn and Rochdale footballer who boasts former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd as his godfather.

He gave no clear chance but on 41 he edged Callum Thorp at waist height to where third slip should have been. Given that Durham’s only concern was to take wickets, it was a mystery why the position was vacant.