DURHAM coach Jon Lewis last night savoured the relief of ending the season with a much-needed win and looked forward to developing his young charges ahead of their record-equalling 11th successive season in division one.

Lewis was linked with the Sri Lanka coach's job at the end of last summer, when he was beaten to it by Marvan Attapatu, who recently resigned.

“I am ambitious and I had spoken to Kumar Sangakkara about it when he was with us,” admitted Lewis, whose original county, Essex, also have a coaching vacancy.

“I don't know what's going on down there and I'm not thinking about applying for another job,” he said. “I want to focus on improving our young players here.

“Our early wins probably papered over a few cracks. We would look to recruit if the right person was available, but looking at the ages of most of our players they have time to develop.

“We have given young lads like Jack Burnham and Graham Clark a chance, but opening the batting is tough. It might help their development if they can have a look from the middle order.

“It underlines how good Scott Borthwick and Mark Stoneman have been. It's an exceptional effort to score as many runs as they have.”

Lewis said no decision had yet been taken on whether Gordon Muchall will be offered a new contract but confirmed that Phil Mustard would be staying on.

“It's a good opportunity for him to finish the season on loan at Lancashire, but I hope he still has a big part to play with us. He had a tricky start to the season, but he conducted himself well and helped out in the second team.”

Michael Richardson, whose unbeaten 65 saw Durham home yesterday, said: “It got a bit twitchy at the end and the fading light played into our hands a bit. It meant they couldn't bowl their quicker bowlers.

“To finish with a win is good for morale and confidence. We didn't want to end up stewing on a season of missed opportunities.”