DURHAM continued to perform in fantasy land yesterday and their first championship success against Leicestershire looks like being not so much a win as an annihilation.

Durham are not totally dependent on Australians for their occasional highlights and if inspirational new captain Mike Hussey wants to bring another one into his side next week it will not be at the expense of Liam Plunkett.

A week after his 20th birthday the Teessider ruthlessly capitalised on Hussey's epic innings of 253 by destroying Leicestershire's top order at Grace Road.

With England selector Geoff Miller again present to check on Steve Harmison, the former world No 1 was upstaged as the impressive Plunkett took the first four wickets after Durham declared on 523 for eight, their highest total for three years.

Needing 374 to avoid the follow on, Leicestershire slumped to 49 for four and were so rattled that the experienced Paul Nixon ran out two colleagues in the space of two overs.

By that stage the Foxes resembled headless chickens and looked to have as much chance of avoiding defeat as the Tories have of winning Easington.

It became 88 for nine before Nixon was helped in a last-wicket stand of 35 by Claude Henderson, who made 22 before being brilliantly caught at point by Dale Benkenstein to leave Plunkett with five for 43.

All out for 123, Leicestershire had five overs to bat when they followed on and reached ten without loss.

Clearly, Harmison doesn't want to peak too early this season and it was more important for him to find some rhythm yesterday than bowl at full tilt on a sluggish pitch.

He had a couple of good lbw shouts turned down and beat the bat several times, but Plunkett's greater accuracy earned him the wickets.

The first was a bit of a gift as Darren Maddy sliced a cut to gully, but off the next ball Aftab Habib survived a sharp chance to Paul Collingwood at first slip.

Collingwood made no mistake two overs later, holding a low chance to see off Darren Robinson, then the next two victims were both lbw.

It was obviously a good toss for Hussey to win as the top two inches of the Grace Road square were replaced at the end of last season in search of flatter pitches with more pace.

This one became more variable in bounce on the second day, but there was nothing in the pitch to excuse a spineless display by a side suffering from the psychological submission which afflicts most teams when faced by a mountain of runs.

It last worked in Durham's favour against Hampshire at Riverside in 2003 on the occasion of the only higher score in Durham's first-class history than Hussey's 253. That was Martin Love's 273 and Durham won that game by an innings and 115 runs.

Love also made 251 at Lord's in 2002, and the only other championship double hundreds for Durham have been scored by Marcus North at Cardiff last year and John Morris in what's known as the Lara match at Edgbaston in 1994.

The previous highest score on championship debut for Durham was Mark Saxelby's 181 at Chesterfield in 1994.

Things didn't bode well for the Leicestershire batsmen as Hussey battled through the morning session, leading something of a charmed life in adding 49 to his overnight 165.

Batting was obviously not easy and he was ably assisted by a watchful Nicky Peng after the early loss of Benkenstein to the deserving Ottis Gibson.

The West Indian had a big shout for caught behind turned down with Hussey on 168 and went very close to having him lbw on 182.

In the 190s Hussey saw two top edges fall just our of fielders' reach, but any fear of missing the fifth batting point was dispelled with two of the 130 overs to spare.

Peng had some difficulty against the turning ball from Henderson, but swept the left-arm spinner in front of square for two fours in an over to bring up the 400. Peng was lbw to a ball which kept low without adding to his lunch score of 39 and Gareth Breese was also lbw for ten.

Durham were obviously pressing on for a declaration by now and Phil Mustard was off the mark with a superbly-struck straight six off seamer David Masters. He added two more runs before repeating the blow, but Hussey's marathon, which lasted ten minutes short of ten hours, ended when he drove to long-off. He faced 426 balls and hit 33 fours and three sixes, all pulled off Masters.

The declaration came when Mustard went down the pitch and was stumped for his sprightly 28.

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