Date-stamped : 09 May95 - 14:29 CC: Lancashire v Durham, Old Trafford, 4-8 May 1995 ====> Day 1, 4 May 95 Lancashire rely on discipline to look the part - Christopher Martin-Jenkins First day of four: Lancashire (37-1) trail Durham (249) by 212 runs IF Lancashire are to win their first outright championship since 1934 this summer - and they are well equipped to do so - they are going to face many such days as these. Honest toil mixed with a measure of inspiration will be needed to overcome the disadvantage of losing the toss in hot weather on a pitch as flat as a pancake and a good deal harder. Both were in evidence yesterday as they bowled Durham out for 249 by half past five with Chapple, Martin, Keedy and Watkinson pro- viding the graft and Wasim Akram the little bit extra. Aiming for the middle of the pitch without mercy once he sensed the incompetence of Durham`s tail, the prodigal son, his long hair flying like a marauding pirate, scythed through the last four batsmen, at a cost of only six runs in 51/2 overs. Both at 101 for one and 180 for three, Durham had expectations of something much more substantial than 249. Given a good start, indeed, 349 might have been closer to par, but if they were to score that sort of total one of their three most accomplished players, Wayne Larkins, Mike Roseberry or John Morris would have needed to make a hundred. It will be like that, I suspect, all season long, because Jimmy Daley is still learning and Manoj Prabhakar is really a bowling all-rounder. Roseberry was dropped at first slip by Mike Atherton in Peter Martin`s first spell, but thereafter he picked up runs off the relatively few bad balls, quick as usual, to pummel the short ones through extra cover. Martin, like Glen Chapple bowling a disciplined off-stump line, bowled Larkins through the gate but Morris at once made batting look a simple art, more so, indeed, than any of the five Test batsmen who got to the crease yesterday. The speed with which Morris took charge against the fast bowlers persuaded Watkinson to give a decent morning bowl to Gary Keedy and this slip of a lad from across the Pennines responded with a further illustration of his promise. He has an old fashioned air about him: six men on the off-side and nice little variations of flight. He will continue to do well if he heeds what Wilfred Rhodes said about his art: "If they went forward I tried to make `em come too soon and if they went back I tried to make `em go too slow." Roseberry, it is true, was deceived not so much by flight as by width, caught behind driving shortly before lunch and it is equally true that Morris looked to be enjoying himself after- wards, driving Keedy majestically over long-off for six. His fatal misjudgement against Chapple, driving at a good length ball with his weight on the wrong foot, changed the day. Daley, fresh from 176 and 65 in a 2nd XI game, grafted but could not command and Prabhakar lifted the patient Martin to mid-off. Over to Akram. His was a bullying spell - both Chris Scott and James Boiling (twice) were hit - but it is part of a fast bowler`s job to knock over the tail and this is the way these days that they try to do it. He hit the stumps with two yorkers and the splice of the bat with two bouncers: simple. If Akram bowled short with the old ball, so too did Simon Brown and John Wood with the new one. For a few overs it was the old story of getting too excited by the sight of a hard ball and a pitch with some bone in it. They may have kept Atherton and Jason Gallian on their toes but, one airy drive past gully by Gallian off Wood apart, it was only when Brown pitched the ball up and gave it a chance to swing that he achieved his purpose. Driving a second time with his weight wrongly distributed, Gallian was duly taken in the gully. The pitch should turn in due course and Lancashire are well placed to take maximum points from this one if they bat at their best today against a Durham attack which is not to be underes- timated. Michael Betts, 20, pacey and full of zest, certainly kept Atherton and Crawley very quiet. It has been too easy for Lancashire to shelter behind the excuse of their true pitches in recent years, but if the side is good enough they will find ways of bowling sides out as they did yes- terday. David Lloyd, insisting on them all wearing caps, has asked for disciplined cricket and the rewards should come. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com) ====> Day 2, 5 May 95 Watkinson century revives Lancashire - C.Martin-Jenkins Second day of four: Durham (249 & 45-1) trail Lancashire (370) by 76 runs THE right sort of pitch - dry, true and likely to turn - has pro- duced a thoroughly absorbing first two days at Old Trafford. Lan- cashire have achieved their anticipated command, but not without being tested to the limit of their batting depth by a spirited and well-sustained Durham performance. Having been in the perilous position of 105 for five half-an-hour before lunch, Lancashire were rescued by a magnificent innings from their estimable captain, Mike Watkinson. Even with his 108 off 122 balls, calculated assault at its best, Lancashire`s lead would have been insignificant or non-existent had it not been for a dogged innings by the night-watchman Glen Chapple at the start of the day and an extraordinarily commanding one at the end by the number 10 batsman Peter Martin. The whole Lancashire side can bat. Even Gary Keedy - although he has not, of course, scored a first-class hundred like the alter- native as main spin bowler, Gary Yates - showed the rudiments of a decent technique in sharing with Martin in the highest 10- wicket partnership yet scored against Durham, 89. For the second day running Durham flattered to deceive but the imbalance between the morning session, when four prime wickets fell for 100 hard-earned runs, and the remaining two when the bat was more or less in control, was explained by more than just the freshness of the bowlers. A pall of sickly, yellow-grey hung over the ground in the first two hours. Had it been December one might almost have expected snow. Had it been Calcutta the batsmen might have blamed their difficulties on the smog. Only when the rush hour filth had lifted did batting become easier Certainly the ball swung about in the sweltering atmosphere and only when the accumulated filth of the morning rush hour had lifted did batting become easier. That is not to say that Durham`s three fast bowlers, shrewdly assisted by Manoj Pra- bhakar, did not each in his different way bowl well. John Wood is big, strong, bullish and aggressive; Mel Betts, smaller and only an apprentice as yet, also gives it all he has got; and Simon Brown, at the age of 25, has become probably the best of the England-qualified fast left-arm bowlers. He did no harm to his chances of attracting the attention of the selectors - belatedly so, given his 75 wickets last year - by dismissing the England captain. Although he turned an ankle late in the day he has a reputation, well deserved, for always being fit. Brown believes that his natural slimness makes it easier for him than the more bulky stereotypes of his profession and he would have bowled more than his 575 first-class overs last year if he had been asked, even at Brian Lara. Brown`s greatest gift, however, is his ability to bowl the insw- inger and it gained him his first wicket in the ninth over yes- terday, when Mike Atherton padded up, which would have been safe enough, most of the time, against Brown`s main rivals Ilott and Mullally. The wicket brought Chapple and John Crawley together all too briefly because Crawley drove too soon at Prabhakar and lifted a catch to cover. I had not been alone in confusing Chapple and Crawley during the last few overs of the first day, which, in roughly equal propor- tions, says something about Chapple`s good technique, Crawley`s new slimline figure, the de-personalising influence of the helmet and and my short-sightedness. Playing and missing a good deal outside the off-stump against Prabhakar and Wood in particular, Chapple nevertheless batted his way worthily through a morning of mounting crisis for the home side, on the way to his first genuine county fifty. Neil Fairbrother played a couple of cracking shots before cutting half-heartedly to gully and Nick Speak forced to cover off the back foot. Those who wonder how Speak survives amid the stars in the Lan- cashire batting should know that there are only four non-Test batsmen with experience of more than 90 matches who average over 40 (the other three are openers: Fordham, Moles and Bicknell). Not one of them, however, is half as versatile a cricketer as Watkinson. Commanding the crease from the moment that he came in, seven overs before lunch, he transformed the day, driving majest- ically and pulling the short ones further and further from the meat of his bat. When he was out soon after tea he had hit four sixes, three of them off the steady James Boiling, and 16 fours. The attack was frayed when Martin did something similar at the end - 11 fours and a six - yet he too played with upright, hand- some assurance. When Wasim Akram uprooted Mike Roseberry`s off- stump before the end, Lancashire`s cup, almost dry five hours earlier, was overflowing. ====> Day 4, 8 May 95 Atherton in charge as Lancs triumph - Brian Bearshaw Lancashire (370 & 314-2) bt Durham (249 & 432) by 8 wkts MIKE Atherton competently directed Lancashire to a victory target of 312 with his second hundred of the Bank Holiday, his fourth of the spring. He batted from start to finish yesterday for an unbeaten 155 to add to his 103 on Sunday, taking his total of runs in all com- petitions to 672 at an average of 96. There were partnerships of 94 with Jason Gallian and 179 in two hours with John Crawley as Lancashire romped home with 16.2 overs to spare and claimed the maximum 24 points. Atherton`s form is in sharp contrast to last season, when he could hardly get a run in championship cricket. His determination to succeed this year has been obvious and the spectators who braved the icy wind warmly welcomed his first championship century since June 1993. It was the 36th hundred of his career and the third time he had passed 150. Crawley needed runs and found Lady Luck perched on his shoulder as soon as he looked for them. He hooked John Wood to the out- field, where John Morris surprisingly spilled the catch. Morris, who also dropped an important catch in the Benson and Hedges Cup tie with Nottinghamshire last week, came over all gloomy with a pained expression for the rest of Crawley`s 81-run innings, as if every run was a smack in the teeth. Yet it must be emphasised that without Morris`s magnificent in- nings of 169 on Saturday, defeat would have hit Durham much ear- lier. When Lancashire`s troops marched on to the field at the start of the day it was with the rallying wartime words of Winston Chur- chill and songs of Vera Lynn, supplied by dressing-room attendant Ron Spriggs, ringing in their ears. They responded by taking the remaining wicket - that of Simon Brown - with the first ball and then started their task of scor- ing 312 in 99 overs with an opening stand of 94 before Gallian glanced to the wicketkeeper. Durham were hampered by the absence through injury of Brown, their most successful bowler. Off-spinner James Boiling found the pitch offering less help than he expected and Atherton and Crawley helped themselves to some easy runs in their pleasing partnership, which ended with another hook by Crawley which Morris this time held - two hours and 175 runs on. But there was no shifting Atherton, who faced 265 balls in his five hours at the crease and hit 19 fours. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)