Durham widen the net

Although they already have South African Test opener Herschelle Gibbs lined up for next season, they are also interested in 27-year-old left-hander Lee Carseldine.

He also bowls left-arm medium pace and removed Paul Collingwood with his second ball when playing in a one-day match for the Prime Minister's X1 against England at Canberra last December. Carseldine was at the Australian Academy in 1997 and has been recommended by his Queensland teammate Martin Love. In a season when three Australian left-handers - Michael di Venuto, Mike Hussey and Phil Jaques - have all taken two hundreds off Durham, it is understandable that they should want one of their own.

Whether or not they go for him will depend partly on the outcome of their efforts to strengthen the bowling by landing Ryan Sidebottom, who has been released by Yorkshire. They have already signed West Indian off-spinner Gareth Breese as a non-overseas player.

"We have made progress, but we have to keep moving forward," said coach Martyn Moxon. "We have a policy of encouraging local talent, but there are areas we need to strengthen and decided we were prepared to go down the EU route to do it."

After landing Gibbs the intention was that the other overseas man would again be a bowler, but the chances of persuading Shoaib Akhtar to return have receded because of the fee suggested by his agent.

Although his half season at Riverside will be looked back upon as an exciting time, it is also questionable whether Shoaib could maintain his effort for a full summer. Starting in early July, he clearly paced himself and initially prompted one member to dub him the "Rawalpindi Rickshaw", but his final statistics were impressive.

Never before have stumps been so spectacularly splattered by yorkers at Riverside and the only complaint about Shoaib was that he rarely took early wickets in the opposition's first innings.

Lack of runs has always been at the root of Durham's problems and although their meagre tally of 21 batting points last season was improved by ten they still had 23 fewer than Yorkshire, who finished 24.25 points ahead of Durham despite having one less win. Skipper Jon Lewis returned to form, at least in the championship, and Gary Pratt passed 1,000 first-class runs for the first time as well as being the leading run-scorer in the National League with 510 at an average of 42.5.

The season's batting highlight was Love's 273 against Hampshire - the highest individual score at Riverside. But the rest made little progress, and despite his magnificent 133 at Cardiff Nicky Peng's championship average of 25.21 did not greatly enhance his career statistics.

It is easy to forget, however, that he turned 21 only last week and the greater disappointment was the form of Michael Gough, who is almost three years older and whose talent seemed ready to reach full fruition at the end of last season.

Only time will tell whether Gough's decision to take a year off will rekindle his love of the game. He could have been a future captain, especially with so little likely to be seen of Collingwood if his England career continues to progress.

It seemed that the cruelties of 2002 were to continue when Collingwood suffered a shoulder injury in a pre-season match at Old Trafford and Mark Davies's lung collapsed on the same day.

Collingwood was out for four months, and after his late arrival because of Test commitments Love played only one championship match before breaking his thumb in the C & G Trophy tie against Lancashire.

He was unable to bat as Durham were dismissed for 86, which was the low point of the season until Michael Kasprowicz had them rocking at 44 for seven in the final match.

Dewald Pretorius also missed a game through injury during his brief stay before joining the South Africa squad, and the call-ups for both Love and Shoaib to play against Bangladesh meant Durham fielded two overseas men in only three of the first 13 matches.

They still managed to arrive at the last three games with a good chance of promotion and with both overseas men available. But they lost them all to end the season on a disappointing note.

They finished fourth from the bottom in both the championship and the National League, but at least it was a rise of three places in the main event.

After a run of five games in which they topped 300 in their first innings, they reverted to batting poorly in those last three matches, mustering only two batting points.

Lewis's form had gone and he had been the cornerstone of the batting in the early matches, repeatedly holding the innings together with eight half-centuries in his first ten innings.

It culminated with 124 and 66 against Yorkshire at Headingley, a match which also featured the season's bowling highlight as Liam Plunkett generated pace and movement to take five for 53 on his debut less than two months after his 18th birthday.

There was further agony when Ian Pattison, who had made 62, fell down and suffered a similar injury to Collingwood during a tidy spell of medium pace and was ruled out for the season.

But the efforts of Lewis and Plunkett put Durham on the way to a remarkable double against Yorkshire, having never previously beaten them in the championship.

The home game against the Tykes was turned round by Shoaib, who showed his Jekyll and Hyde character by getting through only 14 overs in four wicketless spells on the first day then bowled an 11-over spell on the second morning in an attempt to clean up the tail.

This gripping passage of play featured a beamer which prompted Steve Kirby to fling his helmet to the ground and march up the pitch, prompting Craig White to intervene on his way to an unbeaten 135.

But it was Shoaib's spell of three for none in 11 balls in the second innings which changed the game as Yorkshire, 121 ahead on first innings, were dismissed for 129 and Durham eased to their 251 target with three wickets standing thanks to a fearless unbeaten 34 by Phil Mustard.

After promising much with the bat when he took over behind the stumps from Andrew Pratt after four matches, Mustard faded. His wicketkeeping also suffered, but he stayed in the team until the final National League match.

The other championship wins were all at Riverside against the three teams who finished below Durham - Derbyshire, Hampshire and Somerset.

Di Venuto rose like a colossus above the rest of Derbyshire's batting as he made 150 out of 244, then Shahid Afridi threatened to win the game in the second innings as he took 14 off Neil Killeen's opening over on the way to a spectacular 67. But Pretorius took four wickets as Durham prevailed by 30 runs.

Hampshire were beaten by Love's 273 and a career-best seven for 70 from Killeen as they succumbed by an innings and 115 runs, while Somerset were destroyed by two spectacular bursts from Shoaib. When they resumed on 83 for four on the third day the Pakistani took four wickets in 14 balls, then he had four for nine in seven overs as they were routed for 56 in their second innings, the lowest first-class total against Durham. Killeen also took four for 30 in that innings, otherwise he continued much as in the last two seasons, looking more of a one-day bowler as he took 25 National League wickets at 20.2.

In fact, apart from the highly promising Plunkett the bowling as a whole showed little progress, although an improvement could be seen in Stephen Harmison when released by England, and Graeme Bridge took his ridiculously belated chance to prove his superiority over Nicky Phillips. After six seasons with Durham, the off-spinner was finally released along with seamers Ian Hunter and Nicky Hatch, all-rounder Danny Law and Ashley Thorpe.

In last season's review I noted that this would be the Last Chance Saloon for the talented Law. A glance at the bowling figures might suggest he was harshly treated when he was dropped after five games, but Durham needed him to perform as an all-rounder and he had barely scored a run. Two late season centuries in the second team came too late to save a sadly unfulfilled career.

It was not as if he had huge competition from newly-signed all-rounder Vince Wells, although his vast experience and pleasant personality were felt to have greatly benefited the dressing room.

Overall, Durham probably finished where they deserved to be. They did make progress, they took great heart from seeing first Harmison then Collingwood awarded England contracts and Riverside's inaugural Test match was a big success.

In the light of his part in bringing Test cricket to Chester-le-Street it was sad to see chairman Bill Midgley depart following what he felt were personal criticisms from some of the members. But life went on and Durham will look forward to next season with plenty of optimism.