DURHAM'S defeat by Sussex last week was the shortest completed match in their first-class history, other than when Kent forfeited their second innings at Riverside in 1995.

At 145.2 overs, the Sussex game constituted less than a day and a half's play, while the 1995 match involved 115 overs with play ending at 2.02 on the first day and 2.21 on the second. The third was washed out.

Despite the damp conditions, Mike Roseberry then agreed to Durham being fed 72 runs in 3.5 overs, of which he made 41, before Kent forfeited their second innings and set Durham a target of 201 to win. They were all out for 85.

In third place for brevity comes the Riverside defeat by Glamorgan in 2002, which lasted 154.3 overs and involved a second innings collapse by Durham to match last Wednesday's. From 77 without loss they were all out for 114, Michael Kasprowicz taking five for 58 and Robert Croft four for 20.

Wednesday's 80 all out was Durham's third lowest total in first-class cricket, the record of 67 coming at Lord's in 1996 when seamer David Follett inexplicably took eight for 22 before quickly sliding back into obscurity.

The next lowest was 74 in the second innings against Yorkshire at Riverside in 1998, when Richard Stemp - hardly a Mushtaq Ahmed - took four for 13.

Perhaps Durham's most extraordinary collapse was on a Cheltenham featherbed in 1997, when they imploded against the gentle medium pace of Mark Alleyne, who took five for 14 as 61 for two became 86 all out. Gloucestershire replied with 471 for six declared.

But we shouldn't forget that the lowest Riverside total belongs to Somerset with 59 in 2003, although that represented something of a recovery after Shoaib Akhtar and Neil Killeen reduced them to two for five.

DURHAM have not seen a lot of Mushtaq down the years, although last week was not the first time they have suffered at the hands of a Sussex leg-spinner. At Hove in 1996 Ian Salisbury had figures of 11-6-15-6 as Durham subsided from 71 without loss to 159 all out.

The only previous occasion on which Mushtaq has proved quite so mesmerising was with Somerset at Riverside in 1997, when his second innings figures were 13-10-4-3, Jon Lewis making 50 out of a total of 135.

Lewis must also have had the measure of him on his last visit to Chester-le-Street for a totesport match two years ago, when Durham's then captain scored 48 and Mushtaq had one for 40 in six overs.

He wasn't in the Sussex team when they last visited Riverside for a championship match in 2001, when they fielded seven of last week's line-up but didn't include any Pakistanis.

THE A team also suffered a spectacular collapse recently, being dismissed for 26 by Yorkshire in a one-day friendly on a wet pitch at Hartlepool.

Graeme Bridge, who was injured, said: "When we were ten for two I told Geoff Cook I was going to walk a lap of the ground in the hope things would improve. When I got back we were 13 for eight."

Yorkshire took a muck-or-nettles approach to their reply and lost three wickets in knocking off the runs.

Durham will hope for drier conditions when they return to the Park Drive ground for a Second X1 Trophy tie against Derbyshire on July 4.

AFTER their troubles with Mushtaq, Durham have been promised some video footage of Shane Warne in action before they visit Hampshire next month.

They were unable to gain access to any footage of Mushtaq under the Crickstat scheme, which involves every county videoing every ball.

Durham have had a video analyst named William Dobson for several years, but now he is helped by Angela Hibbs, who has an M Sc in sports biomechanics from Loughborough. A cricketer herself, she has provided performance analysis for other sports in the East Midlands, including athletics, netball, canoeing and taekwondo, and now works for the Institute of Sport in the North-East.

Coach Martyn Moxon said: "If I tell her I want to look at someone's bowling action she can isolate it from the video, put it on a disc and give me a presentation. She can also tell me to the nth degree whether the action is biomechanically safe.

"We can also have a wagon wheel showing us where runs were scored and conceded, or we can have a chart to show how many runs came off each over."

And we used to think cricket was such a simple game.

AN otherwise grim week for Martyn Moxon ended on a high note when the Barnsley team he supports won the League One play-off final on penalties after a 2-2 draw with Swansea at the Millennium Stadium.

He drove down with his 13-year-old son Jonathan, who has been pressed into the family tradition of supporting Barnsley, and said: "It was a horror journey. It took us seven hours, it was raining from Birmingham onwards and we just kept saying we hoped it would be worthwhile. Thankfully it was and it was a great atmosphere."

DURHAM'S reserve wicketkeeper Garry Park turns out to be a useful batsman and fast bowler as well. He ruined the return of former Durham all-rounder Marc Symington to his home club of Norton on Saturday by scoring a century and taking four wickets in the victory over Sunderland