Durham rely on Di Venuto - again

PAUL Collingwood's third-ball exit proved no more than a minor irritation for Durham yesterday as Michael Di Venuto amassed 204 not out against Kent at Riverside.

It was the second time in three games that the Tasmanian left-hander has carried his bat and this time he took Durham to 407 with such haste that they had 15 overs in which to make inroads into the Kent batting. Only six were possible, however, before bad light intervened with the visitors on 23 without loss.

Di Venuto is the second Durham batsman to carry his bat twice for the county, the other being former captain Jon Lewis.

This was a rather better Riverside pitch than the one on which Lewis made an unbeaten 35 out of 91 against Derbyshire three years ago, and Di Venuto was able to play with great fluency throughout.

He said: "If I get a bad ball I try to put it away and we got a few early on, which got us going. Also the outfield was very fast.

"You always want to make a good impression at a new place, so it was very pleasing to do this on my home debut."

Kyle Coetzer was the only member of the top eight to offer him prolonged support in a stand of 181.

"Kyle's obviously in form and he came in and played his shots," added di Venuto.

"He looked comfortable, just as he did against Lancashire's England bowlers on Monday."

Once Coetzer was out for 74 Durham subsided from 227 for two to 290 for six, despite leaving out both Ottis Gibson and Callum Thorp to include an extra batsman, which meant Gareth Breese went in as low as No 8.

Breese was the third victim inside two overs for seamer Ryan McLaren, a Kolpak signing from a South African cricketing family, and it needed the blossoming all-round talents of Liam Plunkett to stop the rot as he contributed 35 to a stand of 69.

As Di Venuto carried his bat for 155 out of 313 on his Durham debut at Worcester there is a danger of the side becoming over-dependent on him.

Skipper Dale Benkenstein scored a second-innings century at Worcester, but his relative famine since continued yesterday when he hit off-spinner James Tredwell straight to mid-wicket after making only two.

One of Di Venuto's four centuries against Durham was an innings of 150 at Riverside in 2003, and the extent to which pitches have improved since then was reflected in the scoring rate.

It stood at five an over until Phil Mustard got out with the total on 286, when he edged a drive into his stumps straight after clearing long leg.

The miscued hook for six off McLaren followed a six over long-on by Di Venuto off Tredwell in the previous over and the tally stood at 28 off the previous 11 balls when Mustard paid for his over-excitement.

Perhaps Durham had an eye on the weather forecast, but it seemed the lesson had not been learnt from Headingley, where they also scored quickly before being ground down by Joe Sayers' nine-hour marathon.

Di Venuto was so swiftly out of the traps that Durham had 37 on the board after five overs and his 116-ball century was one of the fastest in the championship on this ground.

Cuts and pulls featured prominently, but there were also some sumptuous cover drives and well-timed clips to leg as each of his first three 50s included seven fours. They were also evenly-paced, coming off 54, 62 and 63 balls.

Following his unbeaten innings of 153 and 19 against Durham UCCE last week, Coetzer now has a first-class average this season of 246.

He seems to be enjoying the sort of purple patch in which things invariably go in the batsman's favour, and the key to his progress will be how well he copes when the fates conspire against him.

He survived a few rushes of blood, including one off the last ball before lunch, and his final scoring stroke was sliced just out of backward point's reach.

There were also a couple of edged fours early in his innings, but the rest of his 13 boundaries were driven or pulled with authority.

Kent surprisingly preferred the pace of Robbie Joseph to the accuracy of Simon Cook, who took six wickets in Sussex's second innings last week, but the Antigua-born paceman was removed after conceding 21 in his opening two overs.

When Joseph returned for the 22nd over Coetzer drove him through mid-off and mid-on for fours before being peppered by a series of short balls, one of which hit him on the helmet.

The barrage continued, but he showed good judgement in what to leave and what to hit, twice hooking Joseph for four before the bowler was removed again with figures of none for 53 in five overs.

It might have been different, however, had wicketkeeper Geraint Jones not failed to lay a glove on an edge from Will Smith which flew just to his right in Joseph's second over.

Smith was on two but survived for only three more overs before he tried to pull Yasir Arafat to leg and fell lbw for 13.

Two balls later the Pakistani all-rounder had a good shout for lbw against Collingwood turned down and when the batsman pushed forward to the next ball it did just enough to beat the outside edge and hit middle and off.

SCORECARD

Durham v Kent at Riverside

Durham First Innings
M J Di Venuto not out 204
W R Smith lbw b Yasir Arafat 13
P D Collingwood b Yasir Arafat 0
K J Coetzer b Tredwell 74
D M Benkenstein c McLaren b Tredwell 2
P Mustard b McLaren 23
G T Park lbw b McLaren 0
G R Breese b McLaren 5
L E Plunkett c G O Jones b Tredwell 35
G Onions c & b Tredwell 4
S J Harmison c G O Jones b McLaren 5
Extras (b9 lb9 w6 nb18 pens 0) 42
Total (86.5 overs) 407
Fall: 1-46 2-46 3-227 4-243 5-286 6-290 7-296
8-359 9-367
Bowling: Yasir Arafat 17-2-85-2. Joseph 8-0-62-
0. McLaren 19.5-2-91-4. Hall 10-0-48-0. Tredwell
27-2-88-4. Stevens 5-1-15-0.

Kent First Innings Close
J L Denly not out 15
R W Key not out 7
Extras (lb1 pens 0) 1
Total 0 wkts (6.5 overs) 23
To Bat: M van Jaarsveld, M J Walker, D I
Stevens, G O Jones, A J Hall, Yasir Arafat, R
McLaren, J C Tredwell, R H Joseph.
Bonus Pts: Durham 5 Kent 3
Bowling: Onions 3.5-0-15-0. S J Harmison 3-
0-7-0.