AS Durham look forward to having both Paul Collingwood and Graham Onions in their team for much of the coming season they can anticipate success with a largely home-grown team.

Dale Benkenstein and Michael Di Venuto played hugely important roles in the winning of three trophies, but Durham know that the time is not far away when they will have to survive without them.

They will be seeking some reward for the investment in young batsmen like Mark Stoneman, Kyle Coetzer and Ben Harmison, while the slightly more senior pair of Will Smith and Gordon Muchall know it is time they commanded a regular place.

Following the trauma of losing both the captaincy and his place last season, Smith claims his winter work has left him fitter than ever and he remains determined to regain his 2008 form, when he averaged over 50 in the championship.

The hugely talented Ben Stokes will be an automatic choice, as long as he is fit and hasn't suffered from his frustrating winter with England Lions. Many careers have been seriously hampered in such circumstances, but Stokes's background has ensured that he is made of stern stuff.

Granted a lot more cricket with the Lions than Stokes, Liam Plunkett appeared to be coming through the winter well until his recent injury. But he is expected to be fully fit for the start of championship action at the Rose Bowl next Friday and if Onions and Steve Harmison are also close to full throttle Durham should have the best pace attack in the land.

They will also hope for a bigger contribution from Mark Davies, who missed half of the 2009 season and took two wickets in five games last year before breaking down again. He topped the national first-class averages in 2008 with 41 wickets at 14.63 and, at 30, he should not be past his peak.

As Onions missed the whole of last season through his back injury, while Steve Harmison played in only eight of the 16 championship games and Callum Thorp in five, Durham had to fall back more than expected on Mitch Claydon and Chris Rushworth.

Both might have to battle for a one-day niche, with Rushworth in particular showing enough limited overs expertise to become the new Neil Killeen.

In the 40-over league last season Rushworth's economy rate of 4.34 was bettered only by three spinners - Kent pair James Tredwell and Malinga Bandara, plus Northants' Nicky Boje.

Rushworth was also well up the averages in the competition with 15 wickets at 15.06, but no other Durham player featured in the top 20 for either batting or bowling.

It was a similar story in the Twenty20 Cup, where only New Zealander Ross Taylor featured in the national statistics. He had the fourth highest strike rate of 173.07 runs per 100 balls and the third highest number of sixes with 23 in his 11 matches.

Durham still finished next to bottom in the northern group, however, and have evidently decided it is not worth investing heavily in overseas big-hitters, despite the riches available through T20 success. Their only overseas signing this season is 21-year-old South African batsman David Miller, for the duration of the T20 competition.

Instead, they will hope Collingwood can bring his World T20 Cup winning expertise to bear alongside Benkenstein, whose captaincy skills have been resurrected for one-day purposes. It will be interesting to see how he permutates the spin trio of Ian Blackwell, Scott Borthwick and Gareth Breese. Perhaps all three will play in the T20.

Since Benkenstein led Durham to their first trophy in 2007, in what was then a 50-over competition, their one-day form has gradually declined. It scarcely mattered during the winning of two championships, but during the slide to fifth place last summer the absence of one-day success added to the general disappointment.

The splitting of the captaincy looks a wise move. Having the leadership unexpectedly thrust upon him a third of the way into last season brought the best out of Phil Mustard's batting in the championship as he scored two centuries four years after his previous two.

But the extra burden he carried in the one-day arena, in which he had become a very successful opener, proved too much and without his runs at the top the team suffered.

In their 20th season of first-class cricket, Durham make their earliest start tomorrow at Durham University. When scheduled to play Lancashire at the same time last year, the university had to cancel a week in advance because there was no prospect of the ground being fit for play. When they played Durham a few weeks later the second day was washed out and the third was abandoned because the covers had been vandalised overnight and there was a huge wet patch on a length.

While cramming in most of their limited first-class cricket at a time when they might have to wait for the frost to come out of the ground seems unfair on the students, if play is possible over the next three days it will at least serve a greater purpose for Durham than playing when their championship programme is already well under way.

They can then look forward to slightly warmer temperatures in their opening match in Hampshire before returning north to play Yorkshire at Headingley.

The drainage work carried out at all Test grounds has been completed over the winter at the Emirates Durham ICG, where a late start was requested in order to ensure everything would be ship-shape. The first home action is the championship game against Sussex, starting on April 20.

Following his knee operation and Indian Premier League commitments, Collingwood will miss the first seven, possibly eight, championship games. They are again crammed in before June to allow the 16 matches in the Twenty20 Cup to dominate midsummer. Something closer to common sense is to return next season.

Collingwood should be around for the first batch of ten Twenty20 games, after which his availability will depend on whether he is still required for one-day internationals. Following his retirement from Test cricket, the signs are that his England days are over. He will be 35 in May and Durham will hope to get two or three good years out of him.

When Onions had his back operation late last summer it was stated that he would be out of cricket for up to nine months, giving him a likely return date of June. He is ahead of schedule, but will need to prove himself again at county level after becoming the forgotten man during the winter's Ashes triumph.

He has seen Steve Finn, Chris Tremlett and Tim Bresnan move ahead of him and will be determined to get back into the England frame by making a similar start to the 2009 season. He took 40 wickets in his first five championship games and three other bowlers passed that total as Durham romped to their second successive title.

But last year, while Blackwell matched his 43 wickets of 2009, the next best were Plunkett and Claydon with 35. In Plunkett's case they cost 39.6 apiece and his batting declined alarmingly.

With his Test career over, Steve Harmison let his fitness slip and hit top form only in one seven-wicket spell at home to Warwickshire. Durham believe he is conscious of having let himself down, so if both he and Onions hit their stride Durham could be back in contention for the title.

At 36, Benkenstein showed increasing signs of wear and tear last year, necessitating a hernia operation, and with an eye on the future he might be the one to make way when Collingwood becomes available for four-day cricket.

Di Venuto, 37, still has two years on his contract, but Durham have not abandoned their original ethos of giving opportunities to local lads and Borthwick, the leg-spinning all-rounder, is expected to feature strongly after spending the winter in Adelaide with the ECB Academy.

Some in the England hierarchy are now said to believe he might be a better prospect than Yorkshire's Adil Rashid.

A rapid decline set in last season once Durham had easily won the annual MCC v Champions curtain-raiser in Abu Dhabi.

Barely a month into the season 13 players had been injured. The number of foot and ankle injuries defied belief, with the final casualty being Stokes, who was described by the Kent captain, Robert Key, as the best young batsman he had ever seen after making 161 not out at Canterbury just before his 19th birthday.

Stokes struck the ball with phenomenal power for one so young and he topped the batting averages with 760 runs at 46.25, despite missing the last few games.

In the final match an opportunity was given to West Indian triallist Ruel Brathwaite. A 25-year-old paceman who had been to Dulwich College, Loughborough and Cambridge, he impressed sufficiently to be offered a contract, filling one of the two gaps left by Killeen's retirement and Will Gidman's decision to join his brother, Alex, at Gloucestershire.

Otherwise the squad is unchanged and, given better luck with injuries, there is no reason why they shouldn't challenge for silverware on all fronts.