DALE Benkenstein yesterday shrugged off his injuries and looked forward to finishing the season strongly with Durham before playing on for two more years.

The 36-year-old former captain tore a knee tendon at Headingley in April and also has what physio Nigel Kent tells him is a sportsman’s hernia.

But Benkenstein said: “I don’t really want to know what’s wrong with me right now. I’d rather find out at the end of the season.

“It could just be down to old age, but at this stage of the season something is usually sore. I want to keep going because we still have the challenge of finishing strongly.”

As he nears the end of his fifth season with Durham, Benkenstein admitted that he has reached a stage of his career where he has had to decide if he wants to continue.

“You have to make that decision for the right reasons,”

he said. “Obviously I want to keep playing as long as the club feel there’s a role for me.

“I’ve talked to Geoff Cook about it because he’s been in this position and I haven’t. It’s an important time in anyone’s career where you need to have specific goals and get your motivation from those.

“I don’t have to prove anything to anyone but I still feel I have something to offer and I have two years left on my contract.”

In 88 first-class matches for Durham prior to this season, Benkenstein averaged 51.71.

This year he is averaging 33.10, suffering an apparent loss of form after falling for 40 to a controversial boundary catch in the Twenty20 match at home to Nottinghamshire.

But he is adamant his decision to walk when Alex Hales insisted the catch was clean did not play on his mind.

“I did what I thought was right for cricket,” he said.

“That was always going to be a close game. From a team point of view we went into it with some momentum and had we got over the line it might have kept everything going forward. But it didn’t make any difference to me.

“I moved from five to four this season, which isn’t a huge change but it wasn’t one I really wanted to make. We didn’t feel we could send Ben Stokes in at four as a 19-yearold all-rounder, so it was better for me to make the switch.”

Despite his injuries, Benkenstein has done more bowling than in previous years for Durham, taking two of the four wickets which fell on the first day at Taunton.

“I feel like a cricketer when I’m bowling,” he said. “I enjoy it and like to chip in here and there, but we normally have four or five guys capable of doing the job.

“The captain usually only turns to me to stop the runs flowing or make a breakthrough and we’ve needed more of that this season.

“We have been really lucky in the last few years. When Steve Harmison has been striving to play for England he’s probably won more games for Durham than anybody and when Graham Onions was also pushing for an England place the two of them were spurring each other on.

“Mark Davies, Callum Thorp and Liam Plunkett have also been five-wicket men when fit, but for reasons of injury or lack of confidence there have been opportunities for others. It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and say you want to be playing, but now they have to realise there’s a lot of work to do.”

Benkenstein proposed Will Smith as his successor when he stepped down at the end of the 2008 season after three years in the job, which culminated in Durham’s first title.

“Some people thrive on the job and their games improve,”

he said. “But there are a lot of things you can’t control. Will put everything into the job, but what became really tough for him was that he didn’t look like he was enjoying his own cricket. The club decided it was maybe best for him to get back to where he was as a player.

“Generally a team is only as good as its bowling attack and the trend hasn’t really changed since the change of leadership. But Phil Mustard has done a remarkable job.

“He’s a really important part of the team who never misses a game, so he has to decide at the end of the season whether the captaincy is the best thing for him.”

Although Durham’s hopes of a title hat-trick have slipped away, Benkenstein is not downbeat about the season.

“Winning is just the end result of some performances,”

he said. “The club is bigger than that and the best things come out of tough situations.

“Things have not gone as expected this season, but that’s why people watch sport. We have to put it into perspective because we were not expected to win two titles.

“Looking at the bigger picture we are giving opportunities to two young players who have the chance to play for England – that’s what county cricket is about, although the club remain adamant that winning is important and have done everything to give us the ammunition.

“It’s a challenge for the club to produce another batsman for England because it’s a major concern that teams like Yorkshire and Hampshire have young players scoring 1,000 runs and we don’t.

“Stokes has a huge opportunity and Mark Stoneman is a good player. He’s doing a tough job and has shown he has the ability, so it would be good to give him a decent run.

“Gordon Muchall can look over-anxious because he’s a hyperactive individual. That’s just the way he is. But he’s starting to look calmer at the crease, which is a step in the right direction.”

Benkenstein hopes he has a role to play in helping young batsmen to fill the holes which will be left when he and Michael Di Venuto retire.

He will continue to do his coaching courses in the winter and would like to stay in the game in England.

Whether that will be with Durham remains to be seen.