By Clive Ellis at Taunton
First day of four: Durham 168-3 v Somerset
DAVID BOON believes in the positive approach and by choosing to bat on a pitch which would have persuaded many a captain to give the opposition first use, he may have opened up a winning chance for Durham as afternoon rain lopped 48 overs off the day.
Boon himself played an important role with the bat, making an unbeaten 52, though luck was an inevitable ally on a greenish pitch which yielded movement and steep lift, especially for Andy Caddick.
Boon could have been caught on two, slicing Caddick high through the slips, and survived an easier chance when he was 12. Caddick again was the suffering bowler and Keith Parsons the culprit at second slip.
John Morris and Nick Speak were the main reasons that Somerset claimed only three wickets in an uninterrupted morning session.
Morris, who has been granted a benefit for 1999, should have been out for one. Caddick's hearty lbw appeal was followed by an absent-minded jog down the pitch by Morris, but he recovered his ground as Mark Lathwell failed to gather Piran Holloway's throw.
He was eventually caught low down at point by Adrian Pierson, but Speak settled in patiently and Boon played one vintage square cut off Graham Rose as the pair added 87 invaluable runs.
Day 2: Harmison has a look of quality
By Clive Ellis at Taunton
Second day of four: Somerset (228-8) trail Durham (259) by 31 runs
STEVE Harmison's reward for his emergence as one of the brightest young bowling talents in the country this season is a place in the England Under-19 side to take on Pakistan. Durham will be all the poorer for his absence.
Harmison, who could miss three championship games, looks like a Test bowler in the making. He is 6ft 3in, has an athletic, bounding approach to the wicket and is already close to being genuinely quick.
His stamina and durability were also evidenced by an impressive 13-over spell which yielded the first three Somerset wickets. He returned to bowl the dangerous Graham Rose and finished with figures of four for 57 as Durham eked out a marginal advantage.
Somerset appeared to have hauled themselves back into the game when they took Durham's last seven wickets for 67 on a still bowler-friendly pitch. Sustained hostility from Andy Caddick fully earned his return of five for 116 and took his career tally of Durham wickets to 46, but Somerset were in deep trouble themselves at 60 for four.
The recovery was engineered by Keiran Holloway and Michael Burns in a fifth-wicket stand of 81. Burns supplied the shots, Holloway the crease occupation.
Durham's catching was more reliable than Somerset's on the first day with Nick Speak moving away sharply to his right at third slip to remove Marcus Trescothick, and wicketkeeper Martin Speight ending the Burns-Holloway alliance with a brilliant leg-side catch.
Holloway's patience appeared infinite until he ended an instantly forgettable innings with an incongruous miscued pull to mid-on off Melvyn Betts. His 42 was made out of 174 and lasted 241 minutes.
Day 3: Caddick cleans out Durham
By Clive Ellis at Taunton
Somerset (318 & 72-0) bt Durham (259 and 128) by 10 wkts
FOR all his capacity to madden at international level, Andy Caddick is a giant of the county game. He subjugated Durham so completely in taking five for 49 that Somerset translated a shaky position at the start of play into a victory by 10 wickets immediately after tea.
Durham have experienced some black days in their six-and-a-half years with the county set, but few to match this for unbroken misery. It began with the Somerset tail scoring at a knockabout rate to add 90 in just over an hour and ended with a contemptuous flurry of strokes from Peter Bowler and Piran Holloway, the Somerset openers.
If there was one moment which indicated the shifting pattern it was when Paul Collingwood dropped a straightforward slip catch, offered by Adrian Pierson, which would have finished the Somerset innings on 280.
Steve Harmison, denied a fifth wicket, could scarcely believe his misfortune as Collingwood attempted a compensating run-out and only succeeded in giving away four overthrows.
Pierson and Caddick added a further 38 and then Caddick went gleefully to work with the ball, gaining disconcerting lift from the sort of pacy pitch which he would like to accompany him everywhere.
John Morris was dropped in the gully first ball, but Graham Rose removed him and his fellow opener Jon Lewis in the space of three balls, then Caddick reduced Durham to the rubble of 31 for four with the wickets of Nick Speak and, crucially, David Boon in successive balls.
Only Jimmy Daley, battling to re-ignite a career which has promised much but delivered little, resisted meaningfully to make 36 off 80 balls, leaving Melvyn Betts and Harmison to steer Durham past three figures with some eccentric strokes. Caddick completed a match haul of 10 for 165 and took his season's tally to 48 wickets.
The match ended on a slightly farcical note as tea was taken with Somerset needing just two runs despite vague protestations from Boon, the Durham captain. Bowler hit the first ball after the interval for four to end the proceedings.