DURHAM are trying to register Jamaican left-arm spinner Ryan Cunningham with a view to having him in the squad for the four-day match against Yorkshire at Scarborough starting tomorrow.

Cunningham has been playing club cricket in Essex and is married to an English girl, so he does not have to be considered an overseas player.

Durham expect to announce their replacement for skipper Mike Hussey today, but coach Martyn Moxon knocked back speculation it might be Australian Greg Blewett, who made a century for the Lashings team against an Old England XI on the first day of the Scarborough Festival on Sunday.

"Greg is contracted to do some commentary work for the rest of the Ashes series," said Moxon.

Speaking of Cunningham, he added: "He has played for Jamaica with Gareth Breese, who speaks highly of him. He played in our A team last week and Geoff Cook was impressed.

"We are told the registration should go through OK and if so he will be in our squad of 13. But we haven't been able to look at the pitch, so we don't know if we're likely to need two spinners."

Cunningham fills the gap left by Graeme Bridge, who has had a brace fitted for three months because of his back problem, and it now looks as though Mark Davies could also be out for the rest of the season with similar trouble.

He suffered a reaction after a light bowl on Friday and is to have a scan today.

"We could have done with him for the run-in," said Moxon of a player who missed the last six weeks of last season after being the first in the country to 50 championship wickets.

He looked like winning the race again, but is stuck on 47 after failing to take the field for Essex's second innings at Southend two weeks ago.

Nicky Peng also has a back injury and will miss the A team's three-day match against Yorkshire starting at Riverside today.

After a horrendous journey from Taunton on Sunday night Durham arrived at their Scarborough hotel at 4.30am, only for yesterday evening's Twenty20 friendly against Yorkshire to be washed out.

"It was to be our first Twenty20 match and it's very disappointing," said Scarborough's chief executive Cec Snell. "We had a lot of heavy rain overnight and the water ran off the covers on to the bowlers' run-ups."

The club expected a similar crowd to the 2,000 who turned up for Sunday's game, when all the proceeds went to the Dickie Bird Foundation, with the legendary umpire coming out of retirement to officiate for the first half of the match.

l Yorkshire have dropped wicketkeeper-batsman, Ismail Dawood, for the crunch match against Durham tomorrow, and have replaced him with Simon Guy, writes DAVID WARNER.

The 29-year-old Dewsbury-born player has been an ever-present in all competitive first team matches since Yorkshire signed him from Leeds-Bradford Universities' Centre of Excellence in July, 2004, when Guy himself was going through a bad patch.

Dawood, who plays Bradford League cricket for Cleckheaton, has taken 36 catches behind the stumps in Championship matches this season and has scored 326 runs at an average of 21.73. But director of cricket, David Byas, said Guy had forced his way back with some excellent performances for the Second XI.

"Guy has been keeping outstandingly well by all accounts and has scored two big hundreds in recent games," said Byas.

Read more about Durham here.