THE arguments about outground cricket were fuelled by the fall of 20 wickets at Darlington yesterday on the first day of Durham's match against Derbyshire.

Yet in 17 overs in their second innings Durham reached 63 without loss to lead by 158 runs, and have every chance of recording their first championship win of the season.

After being dismissed for 96, promotion-chasing Derbyshire began to look a little demoralised when they failed to make early inroads second time around.

Durham skipper Jon Lewis suddenly looked like a man with renewed hope as he played with an assurance rarely seen recently in reaching 31 not out, his highest score as an opener this season.

While many fans enjoy the intimacy of a ground like Feethams, and the cricket is rarely dull, what is supposed to be a four-day game could be over in two.

Counties have traditionally visited outgrounds to reach a different audience, and while there were a few non-regulars in a crowd of around 600 the total was a few hundred fewer than might have been expected at the Riverside.

Durham know they can always expect the Darlington club to do their best in all respects, but the reality is that in a wet summer a club pitch is always going to offer help to seam bowlers.

If the quality of batting is as poor as it was before the final hour yesterday then the game has no chance of unfolding along the desired lines. Nor does it help when four batsmen are the victims of brainless run-outs.

With swing also available, batting against the new ball posed problems for all the batsmen except Derbyshire's Tasmanian left-hander Michael Di Venuto.

Durham recovered from 76 for six to make 191 and when Derbyshire were 71 for eight in reply Di Venuto had 55 of them and there were eight extras.

He added only two more before chipping to mid-on, where Lewis took a good low catch, and at 76 for nine Derbyshire were still nine short of the lowest championship score made against Durham.

But the 85 mustered by Surrey at the Riverside in the first match of 2000 was left behind as Durham strayed down the leg side too often against left-handed final pair Kevin Dean and Lian Wharton.

In Derbyshire's two-run win against Durham at Derby in April, Dean made his only first-class 50 and put on 61 for the last wicket with Wharton, who equalled his top score of 13 yesterday.

He finally drove to cover and Derbyshire were all out for 96, one more than they made at the Riverside last season, when 24 wickets fell on the second day.

Derbyshire went on to win that match by four wickets with Di Venuto making 111 out of 224 for six in the second innings.

On that occasion pitch liaison officer Raman Subba Row blamed the fact that the pitch had sweated under the covers for two days, while yesterday Phil Sharpe departed in mid-afternoon apparently content that the surface was in no way to blame for the calamitous batting.

Acting captain following the surprising call-up of Dominic Cork into the England squad for Saturday's one-day final against India, Di Venuto put the pitch and the rest of the batting into perspective by reaching 50 off 56 balls.

He blotted his copybook by being responsible for two of the run-outs, while Karl Krikken had only himself to blame for calling for a single to Gary Pratt at cover.

Pratt swooped and hit the stumps, just as he has done half a dozen times this season, although the rather less agile Krikken has presumably not heard about it.

Gordon Muchall did something similar to run out Mohammad Ali, while a good throw from Stephen Harmison at mid-on saw off Dominic Hewson.

The game is unlikely to feature much spin, but Durham continued to maintain that the selection of Harmison and Nicky Phillips ahead of Danny Law and Ian Hunter was a purely cricketing decision.

If so, it made little sense, and the pitch did not have enough pace for Harmison to trouble anyone as he took none for 25 in six overs.

Ali got the ball through quicker than anyone, and although he often beat the bat he took only one wicket.

It was the seamers who did the damage, with Kevin Dean starting Durham's slide to 72 for six, while Neil Killeen took the first three Derbyshire wickets, the run-outs accelerated the slide and Mark Davies and Marc Symington polished things off.

There were championship best scores of 49 for Graeme Bridge and 33 for Davies in Durham's recovery.

Davies revealed previously unseen quality with his strokes through the covers, but got a little carried away when he tried to swot away a shorter ball from Dean and lobbed a catch to mid-on.

Phillips also played well for his 22, only to suffer a brainstorm when he played the ball back to Graeme Welch and set off for a run.

If that looked bad there was worse to come from Derbyshire and Durham will hope to make them pay today.

Read more about Durham here.