THE pitch was the winner at Northampton on Saturday, but ten points from a draw saw Durham extend their lead at the top of division two to 21 points.

That was because second-placed Worcestershire surprisingly lost at Leicester, further underlining that Durham have been a class apart in their division this season.

At the halfway stage in the championship programme they have five wins and three draws, and would surely have won at Wantage Road had they not lost the first half day to rain.

The pitch eased as it dried throughout the match, so much so that setting Northants a target of 414 in 77 overs on Saturday did not look over-cautious when they were 56 for none after 11 overs at lunch.

Tight spells afterwards, however, from Neil Killeen and Mark Davies, persuaded Martin Love to switch from overdrive to neutral and a halt was called at 5.30 with Northants on 205 for four from 69 overs.

Defending Durham's decision to bat on for 17 overs on Saturday morning, when they already led by 327, coach Martyn Moxon said: "We wanted to win but we were not going to give anything away.

"We had to protect what we had already got. The pitch had become very flat and look what happened in the first 11 overs of their innings. We wanted to keep our fields as attacking as possible for as long as possible."

That inevitably meant that runs were leaked to third man and Love twice edged fellow Queenslander Ashley Noffke through the slips for four on his way to 38 at lunch.

At that stage Northants were up with the required rate, but Love's labours became both painful and painstaking in the afternoon.

He was struck on the hand by Noffke and, given his history of broken fingers, must have feared the worst. But it seemed to be a split rather than a break and after running repairs he continued, only to be stuck on 47 for 26 balls.

Opening partner Bilal Shafayat began to open up, twice pulling Killeen for four, but when he tried to take his bat away from a Davies delivery he edged low towards first slip and Phil Mustard dived to hold the catch.

That was 89 for one in the 23rd over, but any interest Northants had in chasing the target vanished as 21 came from the next 17 overs before Rob White's tortured innings was ended by a well-taken catch at mid-wicket by Nathan Astle off Gareth Breese.

Love was almost bowled by the off-spinner on 49, but went on to make 62 off 124 balls before missing a straight ball from Dale Benkenstein to fall lbw in the over before tea.

Four balls after the break Breese took a second wicket, doubling his tally for the season, when left-hander Usman Afzaal pushed forward and was caught off bat and pad by Jon Lewis at short leg.

It seemed the door was open for Durham with 33 overs left, but David Sales signalled there would be no surrender by driving Breese for six and the situation held no fears for Riki Wessels.

Sales spent the rest of the session comfortably holding out, while Wessels thrashed 11 fours in his unbeaten 57.

Only four wickets fell during the day as Benkenstein and Breese added 86 in 17 overs in the morning, finishing on 83 and 69 respectively.

Benkenstein scored 163 runs for once out in the match and took a career-best four for 29 in the first innings.

Moxon said: "I don't know whether the captaincy is inspiring him, but he's playing some fantastic cricket.

"This is a quick scoring ground, but we gave a very disciplined bowling performance in the first innings and always kept the pressure on.

"Nathan Astle looked dangerous with the bat in both innings and we hope someone is going to suffer soon."

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