Paul Collingwood spent much of yesterday travelling from Lord's to Chester-le-Street in order to take advantage of a strange regulation which allows him to join his Durham teammates in mid-match.

As long as he arrives before the start of the third day, a player released by England can take over from a nominated teammate who may already have played a significant part.

Having been told he wasn't in the team for the first Test, Collingwood left Lords at 9.30am in the hope of batting in Durham's first innings against Glamorgan.

But he was stuck in the inevitable traffic jam and Durham were all out for 220, 173 behind, just as rain arrived at 2.55pm.

Although an hour delay gave their bowlers a bit of a breather, Glamorgan decided not to enforce the follow on as they don't want to bat last on the dry pitch. They reached 77 for two in their second innings with an overall lead of 250 and Collingwood is unlikely to influence the result.

There has been some variable bounce at the Lumley End, where the seamers have taken 15 of their 16 wickets.

Durham's distrust of the pitch was reflected in their batting, with Gordon Muchall seizing every opportunity to find the boundary in making 93 off 112 balls.

But only Andrew Pratt was out to something unplayable, edging a fierce lifter from Darren Thomas to second slip.

Others like Taunton hero Gareth Breese perished because their fear of a death ball from the Lumley End persuaded them to drive without due care at the other end.

Breese drove Robert Croft straight to mid on and only Ian Pattison, who would have made way for Collingwood, gave Muchall lengthy support.

They put on 59 after Durham had slumped to 110 for 7, then the third highest stand came for the last wicket as Pallav Kumar shaped very capably on his debut by putting on 44 with Mark Davies.

The match has followed a very similar pattern to the Somerset contest last week, but whereas the Taunton pitch did not deteriorate at all over the four days this one is very unlikely to allow Durham to pull off another stunning win.

Resuming on 4 for 2 yesterday, David Harrison had Marcus North lbw for 13 to claim his third victim on the way to a career best 5-75.

When he made way for Alex Wharf to have a go at the Lumley End the Yorkshireman struck twice.

The out-of-touch Gary Pratt, dropped second ball at gully, went for 12 when he steered a catch to second slip. Then Nicky Peng's sliced drive was brilliantly caught at backward point by Adrian Dale.

Muchall was obviously keen to get after Croft and went down the pitch to drive him wide of mid-on for his eighth four to reach 50 off 70 balls.

He then hit the off-spinner over long on for six, only to see Breese perish when thinking of something similar

Thomas was finally given his chance at the danger end but after taking Pratt's wicket he made way again for the return of Harrison.

Muchall edged the 6ft 4in Newport for four, then pulled the next ball for his 14th boundary to reach 93.

Having been out for 94 in the last home match against Essex, he obviously wanted to hurry through the nervous nineties but two balls later he fell into a trap by holing out at deep square leg.

Pattison played confidently for 33 before becoming Harrisons fifth victim when he edged a drive to first slip.

Coming together at 176 for 9 Davies and Kumar did well to earn a batting point, with Davies driving Harrison for three fours in an over before falling for 29 when he edged left arm spinner Dean Cosker to the wicket keeper.

Read more about Durham County Cricket Club here.