ONLY the minnows of Test cricket have so far visited Chester-le-Street - Zimababwe two years ago and now Bangladesh. But the signs are that Durham are ready to swim with the big fish in every sense.

Those are the words with which I began an article I was asked to write for the Test match programme at Riverside today, but I gather some tinkering has been necessary because it is considered offensive to refer to the visitors as minnows.

Perhaps plankton would be more appropriate, but in the interests of political correctness we will henceforth refer to Bangladesh as lesser fry. They might evolve into the great white sharks of the cricketing world, but for the moment the argument is whether it does them any good to be as soundly thrashed as they were at Lord's.

We cannot be certain whether Michael Vaughan declared out of pity or because he wanted an early getaway for Cardiff, where he had a ticket to watch his beloved Sheffield Wednesday playing Hartlepool on Sunday.

He didn't seem to have much consideration for those, including hundreds of schoolchildren, who had tickets for Lord's on Saturday. It might have been all over well within the ten overs which would have triggered a 100 per cent refund had Steve Harmison been granted the third hat-trick of his career.

Resuming at 90 for five, the lesser fry lost three wickets in the first nine balls, but when Harmison appeared to have Anwar Hossain lbw first ball the appeal was turned down. The ninth wicket pair then put on 58 and only a 50 per cent refund for the fans was required. This cost almost £200,000, although it could equally be seen as a saving of that amount given what might have happened.

It is not Vaughan's job to balance the books of English cricket. His task is to win matches as efficiently as possible and whip his team into the best possible shape for the Ashes series. As cricketers always insist any time in the middle is better than more nets the lesser fry are serving a purpose.

IN the absence of any news about Audley Harrison's meteoric rise to greatness, British boxing fans have to rely on Amir Khan and Ricky Hatton for something to get excited about.

Just how good is Hatton will be discovered in the world light-welterweight title fight at Manchester's MEN Arena when he faces the outstanding Kostya Tszyu, who was born in Russia, has lived in Sydney for 12 years and has contested ten of his last 11 bouts in the US. It's because of his American TV appeal that a fight said to be the biggest in Britain for 20 years in terms of crowd appeal is taking place at the ludicrous hour of 2am on Sunday.

A fair proportion of the 22,000 crowd will surely be the worse for drink at that hour, so if things are not going Hatton's way all hell might break loose. Perhaps that's what American TV audiences want.

RICKY Hatton is said to be an excellent role model, which is more than can be said of another Manchester-based sportsman, Rio Ferdinand, who has asked for more time to consider an offer of a new £100,000-a-week contract at Old Trafford.

Here is a man who has learnt nothing from his six-month ban for failing to take a drug test and was interviewed by police this week following a disturbance in a Watford hotel. He should be sent back to West Ham and ordered to show loyalty and humility instead of greed. If he were joined by Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Glen Johnson and all the other stars who have rolled off the Hammers' production line they might re-establish themselves in the Premier League and even challenge Chelsea for honours.

Ferdinand's avarice will provide an early test for the new Manchester United owner Malcolm Glazer, who would probably rather sell him now than have to let him go for nothing at the end of his current contract in 2007.

GIVEN the ultra-professional approach of Sir Clive Woodward, will the current Lions produce the legendary characters and stories which have emerged from previous tours? They once took the media on a huge drinking spree at the start of a tour in the hope they could glean more damaging information about the Press than the scribes would have on them.

One of the funnier, innocent stories concerned a burly Welsh forward who was upset to find there was no bacon with his otherwise huge breakfast in New Zealand. "Six million sheep in this country, and not one rasher of bacon," he said.

The Lions kick off tomorrow against the Bay of Plenty and after their uninspiring draw against Argentina they have already been written off by one former All Black as the worst Lions to leave these shores. Come to think of it, the Antipodeans didn't fancy England to win the World Cup, did they.

Published: 03/06/2005