Durham Under 11 academy coach, John Windows, gave the Durham squad extra fielding work after their match last week with Cleveland county and when their match with Northumberland was cancelled also last week, he spent a further three hours working on catching and fielding with the Durham team.

All his hard work paid off in the match with Lincolnshire at Castle Eden on Sunday. Brilliant ground fielding, catching and wicket keeping saw Durham win by the narrowest of margins.

John Windows altered the batting line up for Durham's sixth match enabling the boys who were yet to show their batting skills the chance to shine after Durham won the toss and elected to bat. At lunch, Durham were only 42 for 4 and scoring at only two an over but in the second session of the day they managed to reach a 45 over total of 101. Lincolnshire set about chasing Durham's total well but great bowling from Phil Smith and Alex Ryan soon pegged them back.

The spin pairing of Nathan Watson and Jack Vickerman began the collapse of the visitors batting and the Durham boys soon began to sense they were back in the game.

After tea, Durham's extra fielding work came to fruition. In the space of ten overs, James Dobson had a quick fire stumping off the bowing of Vickerman and assisted the Durham fielders with four spectacular run outs. The best of which was Chris Martin's excellent throw from the square leg boundary straight into Dobson's gloves to get rid of Lincolnshire's top batsman.

The return of pace bowler Phil Miller ended Lincolnshire's dream of victory as he clean bowled the last man in the 31st over leaving the visors 20 runs short of Durham's total.

A great victory for the Durham boys, who learned a valuable lesson in "practice makes perfect".

They may not have totally enjoyed all the extra hard work at the time but they will have realised that it was this that helped earn them their victory.

The Castle Eden club should be congratulated for the manner in which they hosted this fixture. The boys, parents, officials and guests from both sides were treated to marvellous catering at lunch and tea. They organised a raffle which enabled them to donate £40 to both county organisations and members of their committee made every effort to make their visitors welcome.