DURHAM had better step up their one-day preparations because they are not going to win the LV County Championship this year.

It's hard to believe that a quarter of their programme has already gone and even more difficult to comprehend that they have acquired a paltry 16 points from four games.

Assuming Worcestershire pick up a couple of points from their badly-disrupted match at Lord's, Durham will remain bottom of division one and after yesterday's nine-wicket mauling by Warwickshire Bears they are 55 points behind the leaders.

It was their first championship defeat by Warwickshire since 2006. There had been two draws since then and seven Durham wins, mostly by big margins, as in last year's double.

While Ian Bell's 120 was crucial for the hosts, so was the ten-wicket match haul of Keith Barker. Formerly a fairly innocuous trundler, he appears to have been transformed by a winter of working with Warwickshire's Durham-born bowling coach, Graeme Welch.

Durham appeared to have a chance of turning the game around when skipper Phil Mustard was going strongly in tandem with Dale Benkenstein, who has featured in many a reviving stand.

An innings defeat loomed when Mustard went in at 58 for five, with his team still 46 behind. But by recent standards it was a pleasant afternoon and with Barker out of the attack batting was relatively straightforward.

Mustard made 45 off 52 balls but got carried away and drove off spinner Jeetan Patel straight into the hands of deep mid-off.

Barker returned to have Scott Borthwick caught behind off the first ball after tea, sparking the loss of the last four wickets in four overs.

Durham were all out for 139, leaving Warwickshire to score 36 to win, which they managed in 7.4 overs. The total playing time was just over two days.

The weather has prevented Durham from gaining any momentum and they are also being reminded that when you're down you constantly get kicked in the teeth.

Graham Onions was totally out of luck in the morning and the misfortunes continued with the bizarre run out of Paul Collingwood.

A ball from Rikki Clarke struck him on the pad and ran off in the direction of leg slip. Collingwood set off for a leg bye and was rightly sent back by Benkenstein, only to slip as he turned. Wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose's shy hit the stumps with Collingwood flat out and his outstretched bat several inches short of the line.

The rest of the top four all fell to the left-arm swing of Barker. Will Smith shaped to drive an in-swinger and was bowled off bat and pad for one.

The ball trickled on to the stumps, whereas Michael Di Venuto's off pole was sent flying by one which went straight on when he was in two minds whether to play at it.

Two edges by Ben Stokes narrowly eluded the slips and brought him five runs before he drove a four through mid-off and was then turned round by the next ball. He was shaping to play to leg, but was caught at gully.

Barker failed to hang on to a sharp return chance offered by Benkenstein on two and finally rested with three for 27 from 11 overs.

The much gentler swingers of Darren Maddy meant batting instantly became easier, but Ian Blackwell is so out of touch he played round one which wobbled into his pads and had him lbw for nine.

Then came the stand of 59, which appeared to give Durham some hope, but they were always up against it after conceding a first innings deficit of 104.

Already 32 behind, they needed to take Warwickshire's remaining three wickets very quickly in the morning, but they added a further 72 before they were all out for 267.

Rarely can a bowler have endured such an hour of torment as Onions as edges either dropped just short of the slips or flew wide of them.

He also beat the bat umpteen times and when last man Chris Wright skied him to mid-on the fielder trying to get under the ball was Blackwell. His back-pedalling always looked unlikely to succeed and although he got a hand to the ball the chance went down.

At least that wasn't costly as Wright added only three more runs before Onions finally had him caught behind to end a very frustrating stand of 33 with Patel.

The spinner, whose rustic approach won the match against Somerset last month, clobbered an unbeaten 30, including three fours in an over off Mitch Claydon, who did produce a good one to have Bell caught behind for 120.

Once the lead had reached 100 it was clear that Durham were going to have to bat very well to save the game, unless it rained again.

And there was no sign of that.