Date-stamped : 30 Aug97 - 18:04 Betts turns the tide for Durham By Neville Scott at Northampton First day`s play - No match report Second day of four: Durham (118-2) trail Northants (144) by 26 runs A SINGLE point divided these lower-depth sides in what, after Wednesday`s five overs, is effectively a three-day game. Mel Betts had changed all that with lunch still 22 minutes distant. Bowling throughout the innings, including a 16-over morning spell, his eight wickets in 67 balls to that stage brought Durham full bowling points before Northants had reached their 32nd over. When later, after a 47-run 10th wicket stand, he had Mohammad Akram, highest scorer, top-edging his hook, Betts became the first ever Durham player since first class status, and the only bowler in all cricket this season, to return a nine-wicket haul. Betts is not near Test honours but, of a dozen under-25 seam- ers in the A-tour reckoning, he must be close to the top. Modest- ly, he counts his seven for 29 against Kent in June - amongst 30 championship wickets at 20.03 in seven games this year - as the finer performance. There is swing here with speed and the skiddy bounce of a short frame. Betts had some help from insecure batting which betrayed lack of focus again. Four fell to ambitious slashes, cuts, hooks and pulls, the kind of over-eager shot too often found on pitches with lift, but most sides would have struggled. Defeated in all but one away match this summer, Durham, de- spite losing Jon Lewis to inswing and Martin Speight to a smart leg-side stumping, made careful strides towards reversing the trend before rain ended play 21 overs early. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Boon makes most of resigned air By Neville Scott at Northampton Third day of four: Northants (52-0 & 144) trail Durham (376) by 180 runs DAVID BOON, who in mid-July, when mired in a sequence of low scores, became the sixth Australian to pass 20,000 runs, contin- ued his revival with a second successive century. Against a Northamptonshire side on whom resignation had settled from the start, his hundred had the inevitability of time. Resuming on eight, Boon, slow and utterly resolute in reaching 117 from 260 balls, was not dislodged until the third ball af- ter tea when he "walked" for a catch behind. This gave Mohammad Akram the third scalp in his second Northants five-wicket bag but his lowly aggregate remains 27 at 37.93 each. In a strategically astute innings, Durham posted 350 two overs later, securing eight bonus points, with four balls to spare, for the first time since June 1 last year. But Northants had long accepted their role: to bat some 100 overs for a draw at best. It was 80 minutes after lunch before the day`s third wicket went, Akram taking the new ball and bouncing out Robin Weston, who might have fallen earlier to his old Loughborough Univer- sity col- league Michael Davies had mid-on been sharper to move. Davies and Jason Brown, apprentice spinners with six appear- ances and 44 years between them, kept things impressively tight in 28 overs in tandem but the pitch has turned less than both sides expected. Davies had a fluent Stuart Hutton five short of his hundred with one which kept low and Brown removed John Morris, caught sweeping, with the morning`s final ball. Two Akram wickets in the last two deliv- eries pre-empted Durham`s declaration by about 30 minutes. At least the Northants openers showed the will to keep all wickets intact for a rearguard today. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Fordham proves cut out for job By Neville Scott at Northampton Northants (144 & 309-9 dec) drew with Durham (376) WHAT might merely have been two sessions of mounting tedium with the game moving relentlessly towards a draw were at least relieved by the savage square-cutting of Alan Fordham as he continued his Northants rehabilitation with relish. Left out of the side for the first nine games of this season, Fordham, passing 50 for the fourth time in 10 innings, raced to 83 from 139 balls before going 55 minutes prior to tea. Michael Foster found sudden lift to induce an involuntary jab to slip but, by then, at 198 for three, Northants were only 34 be- hind. Trailing overnight by 180 with all wickets intact, Northants lost Alec Swann in the day`s sixth over. Checking a limp drive to Simon Brown`s slower ball, he was held at second slip. Richard Montgomerie advanced to 73 before driving back a full toss to David Cox. David Sales clipped James Boiling to mid- wicket, but a tea deficit of just five runs with six wickets standing had all but completed the rear- guard action. Leicestershire chief executive Tony Collier said poor drainage was to blame for the controversial abandonment of their match against championship leaders Glamorgan before the start of the final day at Grace Road. Glamorgan intend making an official complaint about the cover- ing of the square, left bare because of a favourable weather fore- cast. Overnight rain left the pitch saturated. Collier said a new drainage system was being installed in October. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)