MONOTONY and Montgomery seemed to go hand-in-hand as Sussex amassed 338 for four against Durham at the Riverside yesterday.

The monotony for Durham is that they keep losing the toss, while for Richard Montgomerie it's much more pleasant as he can't stop scoring runs.

He made a one-day century against Essex on Monday and completed his fifth championship hundred of the season yesterday, becoming the second player to pass 1,000 first-class runs this season after Kent's David Fulton.

Montgomerie, 30 a fortnight ago, was 20 when he played for Oxford University in Durham's inaugural first-class match.

In fact, he played in the first three such encounters, captaining Oxford in 1994, and in five innings had a top score of 29.

Previously with Northamptonshire, he is in his third season with Sussex in a career which has taken until now to reach full fruition.

After a fluent start, he settled in to bat all day as others threatened mayhem then departed. He had two narrow escapes in the 40s, top edging a pull and a cut inches out of the reach of fine leg and third man, otherwise it was a flawless performance as he batted all day for 134 not out.

Jon Lewis lost the toss for the seventh successive championship match, condemning his depleted attack to a difficult day in a blustery wind on a pitch offering little help.

Montgomerie began the day 36 runs behind his partner Murray Goodwin, a former Guisborough professional with whom he has shared two double-century stands, including an unbroken one of 372 at Trent Bridge.

So it was something of a bonus for Durham when they broke through on 81. Graeme Bridge's second ball was a full toss and Goodwin, on 36, tried to smash it through mid-wicket. He missed and was lbw.

Although he edged just short of third slip off Stephen Harmison, who also struck him on the helmet, Goodwin had looked a class act, particularly off the back foot.

On his exit skipper Chris Adams emerged to score 32 of the 40 runs which were added before lunch, thus relegating Montgomerie to the supporting role which he was happy to play for the rest of the day.

Harmison was recalled in an attempt to unsettle Adams, but the man known as Grizzly kept cracking the ball to the boundary and had ten fours in his 60-ball half-century.

Three balls later he gave Danny Law a return catch and the former Sussex man suddenly began to get past the bat as Dutchman Bas Zuiderent managed to make batting look difficult.

He appeared to have lost the early-season form which kept him in the side ahead of someone who regularly used to make hundreds against Durham, Tony Cottey.

After finally getting off the mark with an edge off Law, Zuiderent would have been run out on seven had a shy from mid-off been on target, then he almost swept Bridge into his stumps.

But when Michael Gough came on he drove him for six over long-on and was beginning to look dangerous when he went for a wide one from Harmison and edged to Andrew Pratt.

Law, Durham's best bowler, had another success shortly after tea when left-hander Michael Yardy pushed forward and edged to Pratt.

Durham narrowly missed a chance to get into the Sussex tail shortly afterwards when Montgomerie played just in front of square leg and Umer Rashid, on one, came well down the pitch. He was sent back but was well short of his ground as Paul Collingwood's shy flew by the stumps.

Rashid hoisted Michael Gough over mid-wicket for six and added seven fours in contributing 56 to an unbroken stand of 90.

Both Law and Nicky Hatch had an early tilt from the Finchale End, but Bridge had to bear the brunt of the work into an even stronger wind than he faced at Bristol last week.

Control of length was obviously difficult, but he bowled well in the circumstances and always commanded respect from Montgomerie.

Harmison had several bursts downwind, but didn't get the ball in the right places consistently enough to apply real pressure.

Montgomerie's perfect timing in working the ball either side of square leg was the hallmark of his innings as he reached his century off 185 balls with 14 fours.

He added only two more boundaries while facing a further 89 balls and late in the day he appeared to get an inside edge off Collingwood which just evaded Pratt.

But he is still there to continue the torment today and it already seems that Durham's only hope of victory will again be a fourth-innings run chase.

* Durham Cricket Board are just two games away from the final of the ECB 38 Counties Championship at Lord's on September 4.

Today they meet Lincolnshire CB in the quarter-final at Feethams, Darlington (11 am).

Team: Q J Hughes (captain), A Day, S Humble, A Worthy, D Blenkiron, M Davies, G Pratt, G Muchall, P Mustard, G D Brige, C Mann, I Pattison.