Victory keeps treble dream alive

They moved up three places to second in the championship when they beat Worcestershire by five wickets at Riverside yesterday.

They earned 19 points and are 11.5 behind leaders Yorkshire, who have only two games left while Durham have three. Both have to play Sussex, who are 2.5 points behind Durham from the same number of matches.

With the Friends Provident Trophy already in the cabinet, Durham also hope to win division two of the NatWest Pro40 League, in which they visit Derby on Tuesday in their next game.

Most of the world's top players will be joining Chanderpaul at the World Twenty20 Championship in South Africa, so Durham face a tricky decision in working out whether it is worth signing someone not so well established.

It has backfired in the past with people like Shaun Tait and in yesterday's win Gordon Muchall staked a big claim to a permanent place in the middle order by following his first innings 66 with an unbeaten 64.

Skipper Dale Benkenstein said: "Shiv has been fantastic, scoring runs in every innings and helping the other players.

"We're looking for someone to replace him to give us a fighting chance.

"But if we can't find anyone we're happy with guys like Gordon, and Garry Park, who has just made 170 in the A team.

"Bowling-wise we let ourselves down. The control is not quite there and we have to address that if we want to win the title. If it hadn't been for Ottis Gibson we would have struggled recently."

Following his second ball duck in the first innings, Benkenstein put Durham within sight of victory from a slightly rocky 125 for four in pursuit of a target of 276.

His decision to put Worcestershire in on the first morning had already been vindicated as the pitch flattened, but he needed to make sure that the winning position wasn't squandered.

He found a very reassuring ally in Muchall, who could now have a future lower down the order than his previous No 3.

There were no rushes of blood this time as Muchall defended solidly and played a variety of shots, including a late cut off Gareth Batty for one of his ten fours.

The stand of 103 in 24 overs ended with 48 needed, immediately after Benkenstein had reached 1,000 championship runs for the third successive season.

He had hit 12 fours in his 68 when he drove Dewald Nel straight to mid-off, ending his hopes of becoming the first century-maker in a match which produced 11 fifties.

It looked like being a stroll when Durham were 120 for two. But there was cause for concern when Abdul Razzak suddenly removed Kyle Coetzer and Chanderpaul after an untroubled stand of 69.

Benkenstein settled the nerves by opening up with three on-driven fours, then began to pull anywhere from wide mid-on to fine leg and victory looked a formality until he was out.

Muchall had to knuckle down and added only two runs in the six remaining overs until tea, but afterwards he and Ben Harmison needed only 6.1 overs to score the remaining 43.

The target was a little higher than Durham would have hoped when Worcestershire resumed on 330 for eight, leading by 215.

But Batty, on 27 overnight, slogged very effectively, scoring 45 of the 60 runs (four were extras) which Worcestershire added in half an hour.

Ottis Gibson quickly removed Dewald Nel with a bouncer which he gloved to Phil Mustard, who took an excellent catch above his head.

But Batty drove Paul Wiseman over long-off for six in the three overs before the new ball was due, and when Gibson took it the Bradford-born all-rounder attacked almost every delivery.

Graham Onions replaced Wiseman and in his first over Batty clobbered two straight fours before hooking Gibson over mid-wicket for six to reach 50.

Swipes at the next two balls resulted in a four wide of mid-on and a thick edge to the third man boundary.

Durham set the field back, and even though he declined a lot of singles to retain the strike Batty had added 45 from 30 balls to reach 72 before he skied Onions to Benkenstein at deep mid-off.

Although anything under 300 looked well within their compass on a flat pitch against a modest attack, Durham made a shaky start when Kabir Ali swung one in to Michael Di Venuto to have him lbw for five in the third over.

Two balls later Coetzer was aiming to leg when another swinger flew off a thick edge and Batty got his fingertips to it at gully.

That was virtually the only moment of discomfort for Coetzer as he picked up most of his seven fours from sweetly-timed clips behind square leg.

He put on 41 with Mustard, who showed more restraint than usual in his new role as an opener, only to fall for 30 when he drove well wide of off stump and edged Nadeem Malik to the wicketkeeper.

In his last innings for the county, Chanderpaul looked determined to see the job through, being particularly circumspect in the first few overs after lunch, when he was on 17.

All seemed well until Coetzer played back defensively and edged Razzak to first slip, then in the Pakistani's next over Chanderpaul played forward and a ball of extra bounce took the shoulder of his bat and Batty stretched to hold a right-handed catch at gully.

Razzak had two for 25 in his eight-over spell, but there was little threat elsewhere. Although Batty kept it tight, he was unable to add to his six wickets in the first innings.