da supremo： There are few more determined cricketers than Paul Collingwood and heis now utilising the desire and experience that once helped England tospearhead Durham’s unexpected rally to avoid relegation.
da bwin： Myles Hodgson at Chester-le-Street08-Aug-2012
ScorecardPaul Collingwood made his highest score of the season•Getty Images
There are few more determined cricketers than Paul Collingwood and heis now utilising the desire and experience that once helped England tospearhead Durham’s unexpected rally to avoid relegation. Apparentlymarooned at the foot of Division One when he took over as captain lastmonth, his best score of the summer has put them in sight of a secondsuccessive victory.After representing England in 68 Test matches, 197 one-dayinternationals and having led them to the World Twenty20 triumph inBarbados two years ago, Collingwood was the obvious candidate toapproach when Phil Mustard stepped down at the mid-way point of thesummer. They had lost four of their first eight championship matchesand looked like a side preparing for next summer in Division Two.This is Collingwood’s third match as captain, during which time Durhamhave narrowly lost against Sussex at Arundel, secured their firstchampionship win of the season over Middlesex and are closing in on anemphatic win over Surrey, one of their relegation rivals. It has beena staggering turnaround in fortunes, even for a player used toconfounding expectations during his international career.”The spirit has been excellent over the last few weeks, they guys areready for the challenge and we know it’s going to be a hard end to theseason,” Collingwood said. “We have to get ourselves off the bottom of the table, but in many ways it’s an exciting time because it is agood challenge and we believe we can do it.”Durham were indebted to Collingwood’s know how, in tandem with theequally experienced Dale Benkenstein, which ensured they wore Surreydown and instead of contemplating a narrow advantage, stretched itinto a commanding 181-run first innings lead. Both players scoredhalf-centuries during their 132-run stand, with Collingwood scoring 78while Benkenstein’s 69 was his first time past 50 this summer, butequally importantly it provided confidence within the dressing roomthat it was possible to score runs on a pitch that claimed 14 wicketson the opening day.That was underlined with Mustard and Callum Thorp adding an equallyvaluable 72 for the eighth wicket, although not without controversy.Mustard was given lbw when Zander de Bruyn angled the ball into hispads but Jeff Evans, the umpire, changed his mind after consultingwith colleague Michael Gough after concluding he had got an insideedge.Surrey’s irritation rose significantly and although Mustard only addedthree more runs to his total before falling lbw to Jon Lewis, it wasan illustration of a difficult day in the field after their gamble tobat first on the opening day backfired spectacularly. Jason Roy, possibly still seething after his run out in the first innings, illustrated that frustration by questioning the decision to give himlbw shortly before the close.”I think Jason thought he’d hit the ball and we thought the two noiseswere two pads, but we don’t have the DRS and all that sort of stuff incounty cricket so hopefully we won’t get too nit-picky about umpire’sdecisions,” Collingwood said. “They tend to equal themselves outduring the season.” That may be of little comfort to Surrey, whoshould be expecting Roy to receive disciplinary action for hisreaction.Of greater concern to Chris Adams, Surrey’s director of cricket, maybe how Surrey struggled to develop a partnership similar to thatestablished by Collingwood and Benkenstein. They are lacking anyonewith that experience in their top order, but from the moment ZafarAnsari, their young opener, flashed a wide delivery from Graham Onionsstraight to Durham’s captain at slip, it was a struggle.Ben Stokes, Durham’s emerging allrounder, claimed two lbws in animpressive nine-over spell including a wicket with his third ball andany little hope of Surrey battling back into the match appeared tohave been lost when Steve Davies edged behind only eight balls beforethe close.”It was a great effort by the bowlers,” Collingwood added. “There wereperiods when we were batting when it felt really flat but we managedto get the ball swinging and this Riverside pitch always seems to havesomething in it.”
