Durham v Kent (County Championship) : Day Four

SKIPPER Dale Benkenstein is confident Durham have the resources to continue their good start to the season, despite the impending loss of Steve Harmison.

While Liam Plunkett made the vital mid-innings breakthrough, Harmison topped and tailed the Kent innings on Saturday as Durham, needing seven wickets in the final 21 overs, pulled off a sensational 157-run win at Riverside.

With two victories from three games they are third in the table and visit second-placed Warwickshire this week.

Harmison, who now has 24 championship wickets from three games, finished with five for 61, while Plunkett followed his five-wicket haul in the first innings with three for 54.

They took 17 wickets between them in the match and Harmison also forced last man Robbie Joseph to retire hurt.

After a fearful blow on the helmet Joseph was bleeding from an ear and it was decided he needed stitches, so Kent were all out for 169 with 9.3 overs remaining.

Following his own rise to the fringe of the England squad, Graham Onions was overshadowed by his two colleagues and had a disappointing game.

But Benkenstein said: "He made a good comeback in his final spell. He had been struggling but it goes like that and we had to try to pull him through it.

"Hopefully he turned the corner in his last spell and he will be OK, and we also have plenty of other good seamers to call on."

Having Plunkett available and being able to use Paul Collingwood as the fourth seamer allowed Durham to play an extra batsman against Kent and they left out Ottis Gibson and Callum Thorp after playing in the first two games.

"We'll have to go back to four seamers at Edgbaston," said Benkenstein. "Warwickshire are backing their seamers.

"Hopefully our guys will have learnt from seeing how Steve and Liam have got to the top. It was an amazing performance by them - they bowled so many overs together and just wanted to keep bowling.

"Steve has been outstanding and it's hard to understand why he hasn't been performing at Test level recently. He's really hitting his straps. He wants to bowl and he's thinking about how to get batsmen out.

"He had three or four in this match caught down the leg side by the wicketkeeper, which might look fortunate but that's really what he's aiming for."

On a day when 33 overs were lost to the weather, Kent had only three wickets down with 21 overs left, but three wickets for Plunkett opened the door.

He had Darren Stevens caught behind for 35 after a stand of 76 with impressive young opener Joe Denly looked to have ended Durham's victory chances.

Then Onions weighed in when he completed Geraint Jones' miserable match by pinning him lbw for one, and three wickets had gone down in three overs when Andrew Hall drove at Plunkett and edged to Collingwood at third slip.

Yasir Arafat also edged a drive to Phil Mustard, then Harmison returned to finish the job. His first ball was pulled for four to take Denly to 92, but when the paceman went round the wicket for the next ball Denly tried to repeat the stroke and gloved a catch to Mustard.

Three balls later Harmison completed his third five-wicket haul of the season when James Tredwell fended to leg gully, leaving last pair Ryan McLaren and Joseph with 13 overs to survive.

When play began on time Benkenstein hoped to stretch Durham's lead from 311 to 380, but after 15 runs were added in 2.5 overs for the loss of Garry Park rain wiped out 21 overs.

Benkenstein remained unbeaten on 77 and declared with the total on 319 for six, setting Kent a target of 327 in 72 overs.

Plunkett weighed in with two excellent catches, one on the run at long leg and the other a diving effort at square leg as Harmison took the first three wickets.

The second rain break helped him to keep going for 13 overs in his opening spell, but he was still full of fire at the end, as Joseph would testify.

It was a painful end to a disappointing match for the Antigua-born paceman, who had match figures of 14-0-113-0.

SCORECARD

Durham v Kent at Riverside.

Overnight: Kent 400 (R W T Key 169, M J Walker
72; L E Plunkett 5-105,S J Harmison 4-75).
Durham 407 (M J Di Venuto 204 no, K J Coetzer
74; J CTredwell 4-88, R McLaren 4-91) and 304-
5 (D M Benkenstein 66 no, P DCollingwood 58,
M J Di Venuto 58, G T Park 57 no).

Durham Second Innings
D M Benkenstein not out 77
G T Park c G O Jones b Hall 61
G R Breese not out 0
Extras (b7 lb9 nb20 pens 0) 36
Total 6 wkts dec (72.5 overs) 319
Fall: 1-49 2-144 3-148 4-150 5-173 6-318
Did Not Bat: L E Plunkett, G Onions, S J Harmison.
Bowling: Yasir Arafat 19.5-3-85-2. Hall 17-3-68-4.
McLaren 10-2-33-0. Joseph 6-0-51-0. Tredwell 13-
1-47-0. Stevens 7-3-19-0.

Kent Second Innings
J L Denly c Mustard b S J Harmison 92
R W Key c Plunkett b S J Harmison 11
M van Jaarsveld c Mustard b S J Harmison 0
M J Walker c Plunkett b S J Harmison 1
D I Stevens c Mustard b Plunkett 35
G O Jones lbw b Onions 1
A J Hall c Collingwood b Plunkett 3
Yasir Arafat c Mustard b Plunkett 6
R McLaren not out 6
J C Tredwell c W R Smith b S J Harmison 0
R H Joseph retd hurt 2
Extras (lb4 nb8 pens 0) 12
Total (50.3 overs) 169
Fall: 1-26 2-27 3-55 4-131 5-134 6-137 7-157 8-
161 9-161
Bowling: Plunkett 20-7-54-3. S J Harmison 19.3-
3-61-5. Onions 8-0-38-1. Collingwood 3-1-12-0.
Durham (22pts) beat Kent (8pts) by 157 runs