Durham v Nottinghamshire Royal London One Day Cup

DURHAM shrugged off an injury to Graham Onions in the day’s second over to win yesterday’s Royal London Cup tie at home to Nottinghamshire by six wickets.

With Ben Stokes making a rumbustious 103 and Mark Stoneman 86 in a stand of 150, Durham cruised to their 223 target with 4.3 overs to spare.

They are now level with Nottinghamshire and Somerset on seven points, two behind group leaders Kent, and victory in the final group game against Surrey tomorrow will give them a good chance of qualifying for the quarter-finals.

Going in at 35 for two in the 13th over in reply to 222 for nine, Stokes middled the ball from the outset on a pitch on which the visiting batsmen struggled for momentum.

While visiting coach Mick Newell must have been impressed by the quality of Stokes’ striking, particularly his pulling, he was clearly annoyed about the easy runs the powerful lefthander was fed by Ajmal Shahzad in completing his half-century off 51 balls.

Onions’ departure initially looked like being costly as the visitors, who were put in when Stoneman won the toss for the sixth time in seven games, reached 45 without loss after eight overs.

But after Michael Lumb skied Stokes to mid-off they lost their way against tight bowling from John Hastings and Scott Borthwick, who took two wickets in reducing Nottinghamshire to 94 for four.

The only man to achieve any fluency was Riki Wessels, who had made 44 off 46 balls when he gloved a catch to Phil Mustard in trying to pull a leg-side ball from Hastings.

That was in the first over of the batting powerplay when the Outlaws would have been hoping to push on. Instead they collected only 21 runs in five overs as Chris Read had to concentrate on playing himself in.

With Alex Hales on England Lions duty, Nottinghamshire sent in 21-yearold Sam Kelsall to open.

Since making his debut at Chester-le-Street three years ago he has played only two more first-class games and while he survived comfortably enough he looked incapable of pushing on.

He made 30 off 50 balls before he was lbw trying to sweep Borthwick, who then bowled the dangerous Samit Patel when an inside edge trickled on to the stumps.

Steve Mullaney drove Paul Collingwood to short extra cover and Nottinghamshire seemed to decide they would concentrate on batting out the 50 overs.

New Zealand left-hander James Franklin, an experienced international in all formats, played only one shot in anger – a pull for six off Borthwick – in crawling to 28 off 66 balls.

After patting back three balls from Gareth Breese in the 44th over he lofted the fourth to Stokes at long-off.

Borthwick completed a ten-over stint to take two for 41, as did Hastings in finishing with two for 38, while Paul Coughlin bowled well to take one for 45 in nine overs.

The only time Durham came under fire was in the sixth and seventh overs.

After completing Onions’ unfinished over, Calum MaMacLeod was kept on for two more overs.

The first nine balls of his medium pace cost two runs, but then Lumb drove him for six and cut him for four before picking up three fours to the short leg-side boundary in Stokes’ first over.

Had he settled in for a lengthy stay, Lumb could have done some damage, but he holed out for 31 and the innings stagnated.

Durham scored only 23 off the first nine overs of their reply as left-armer Harry Gurney caused Stoneman a few difficulties and Luke Fletcher was also on the mark.

Phil Mustard cut Fletcher straight to backward point and the same bowler had MacLeod lbw for a duck for the second successive match.

The support bowling proved very ordinary, Stokes ferociously pulling Jake Ball when the young medium pacer dropped short.

He reached his 50 in the over before Stoneman, who got there off 76 balls with his seventh four, driven sweetly through extra cover off Mullaney.

Ball was surprisingly recalled when the powerplay was taken and Stoneman immediately pulled him for two sixes.

A miscued pull to mid-on off Fletcher brought his downfall, but after his frustrating season Stokes went joyously to his 116-ball hundred by pulling Gurney fiercely to mid-wicket for his 15th four.

He holed out at long-on off Patel in the next over, leaving Collingwood and Borthwick with six overs to pick up the remaining eight runs.

Collingwood finished it with a six off Patel.

SCOREBOARD

At Emirates Durham ICG.

Nottinghamshire Innings
M J Lumb c Muchall b Stokes.............. 31
S Kelsall lbw b Borthwick.....................30
S J Mullaney c MacLeod b Collingwood....16
S R Patel b Borthwick............................. 3
M H Wessels c Mustard b Hastings..44
J E Franklin c Stokes b Breese ...........28
C M Read c Borthwick b Hastings.....29
A Shahzad c Mustard b Stokes........... 10
L J Fletcher not out ................................ 12
J T Ball c Stokes b Couglin.................... 1
H F Gurney not out .................................. 0
Extras (w14 nb4 pens 0)....18
Total 9 wkts (50 overs) .... 222
Fall: 1-51 2-85 3-85 4-94 5-155 6-184
7-200 8-215 9-220
Bowling: Couglin 9-0-45-1. Onions 0.3-0-
0-0. MacLeod 2.3-0-16-0. Stokes 8-0-40-2.
Hastings 10-1-38-2. Borthwick 10-0-41-2.
Collingwood 7-0-31-1. Breese 3-0-11-1.

Durham Innings
M D Stoneman c Wessels b Fletcher ...86
P Mustard c Mullaney b Fletcher.......... 8
C S MacLeod lbw b Fletcher................. 0
B A Stokes c Wessels b S R Patel........103
P D Collingwood not out ...................... 16
S G Borthwick not out ............................ 0
Extras (lb8 w2 pens 0) .......10
Total 4 wkts (45.3 overs). 223
Fall: 1-31 2-35 3-185 4-215
Did Not Bat: G J Muchall, J W Hastings,
G R Breese, P Couglin, G Onions.
Bowling: Fletcher 10-2-27-3. Gurney 10-
1-53-0. Shahzad 5-0-29-0. Ball 5-0-39-0.
Mullaney 6-1-30-0. S R Patel 9.3-0-37-1.
Durham (2pts) beat Notts (0pts) by 6 wkts