Warwickshire v Durham (Friends Provident Trophy)

ESSEX will be the visitors to Riverside in next Wednesday's Friends Provident Trophy semi-final, when Durham will hope to be back on top of their game after being put to the sword by Tim Ambrose at Edgbaston yesterday.

For a player who stands only 5ft 7in, the 24-year-old Warwickshire wicketkeeper showed amazing power as well as superb timing in thrashing 135 off 82 balls, which included five sixes.

With the hosts needing to win the final group game to join Durham in the semi-finals, Ambrose propelled them to 314 for five, to which Durham replied with 77 for three before rain ended play in the 17th over.

Until Durham lost wickets to the last ball of the 13th over and the first of the 14th with the total on 70, they were only just behind their requirement under the Duckworth/Lewis method. But in the end they lost by 39 runs.

Essex got through with a comfortable win against Somerset and are a very handy one-day side, having won the Pro40 League last season, despite losing by six wickets at Riverside in the final match.

Ambrose joined another wicketkeeper, Nottinghamshire's Chris Read, in equalling the highest individual score made against Durham in the premier one-day event since becoming a first-class county.

Both batted at No 6 and Read's 135 at Trent Bridge last year was in a losing cause after Durham made 280 for six.

When Ambrose went in at 136 for four in the 28th over Jonathan Trott had already revived Warwickshire from 49 for three with a 51-ball half-century.

He had moved on to 67 when Ambrose joined him, yet such was the wicketkeeper's dominance that he was first to a hundred, reaching the target off 66 balls. Although Trott finished unbeaten on 107, he contributed only 39 to the stand of 174.

That beat a fifth-wicket record against Durham in the competition dating back to 1982, when Monte Lynch and Graham Roope put on 166 for Surrey at the Oval.

Warwickshire's total was also a record against Durham since the event was reduced from 60 to 50 overs, beating Lancashire's 307 for five at Old Trafford last year.

Any lack of motivation on Durham's part was not evident at the start. The man they feared most following his 149 against them in the championship here last month was the Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara, but Neil Killeen moved a slower ball away from him to have him caught behind for six.

But once the runs started to flow over a fast outfield there were several lapses in the field, notably by the men patrolling the boundary.

Not that they could do anything about the two successive sixes Ambrose hit off both Paul Wiseman and Graham Onions, all off the front foot in the arc from long-on to mid-wicket.

Wiseman had bowled reasonably tightly until his tenth and final over went for 17, while fellow off-spinner Gareth Breese was taken out of the firing line slightly earlier and emerged with the respectable figures of one for 38 in eight overs.

Killeen, who finished with two for 49, bowled eight of his overs at the start and was unlucky not to have a third wicket as Trott, on 17, edged him between wicketkeeper and slip.

For the rest it was a day to forget. Onions was out of luck early in his first spell when an inside edge by left-hander Jim Troughton missed off stump by a gnat's whisker, but then he proved expensive.

Ambrose was past 100 when Onions returned for the 48th over and was driven for two sixes, and it was scant consolation when the astonishing 82-ball innings was ended by a yorker with three balls left.

Born in New South Wales, Ambrose is a British passport holder who left Sussex after the 2005 season because he was competing with Matt Prior.

He came into the match with an average of 87.66 in the competition this season and also has an innings of 250 to his name in the championship. He remains 35 runs behind Durham's wicketkeeper, Phil Mustard, in the Friends Provident, even though Mustard advanced his tally by only seven to 433 yesterday.

Former Durham University student Lee Daggett, who always impresses against Durham, had Mustard caught behind off an edged drive before Michael Di Venuto and Will Smith put on 50 in eight overs.

But after Smith was caught at backward point off the last ball of the 13th over, Di Venuto fell for 38 to the first ball of the 14th, edging a good ball from Daggett to Ambrose.

With rain approaching, those two wickets were very untimely for Durham and Dale Benkenstein had to seek quick runs. But once the rain arrived Durham were sunk.

SCORECARD

Warwickshire v Durham at Edgbaston.

Warwickshire
I J Westwood b Killeen 14
D L Maddy b Gibson 10
K C Sangakkara c Mustard b Killeen 6
I J Trott not out 107
J O Troughton st Mustard b Breese 37
T R Ambrose b Onions 135
A G Loudon not out 1
Extras (w2 nb2 pens 0) 4
Total 5 wkts Innings
Complete (50 overs) 314
Fall: 1-26 2-26 3-49 4-136 5-310
Did Not Bat: T D Groenewald, H H Streak,
D W Steyn, L M Daggett.
Bowling: Killeen 10-0-49-2. Gibson 7-0-47-
1. Onions 6-0-53-1. Styris 9-0-62-0. Breese
8-0-38-1. Wiseman 10-0-65-0.

Durham
M J Di Venuto c Ambrose b Daggett 38
P Mustard c Ambrose b Daggett 7
W R Smith c Westwood b Streak 23
S B Styris not out 1
D M Benkenstein not out 6
Extras (w2 pens 0) 2
Total 3 wkts (16.2 overs) 77
Fall: 1-20 2-70 3-70
Did Not Bat: K J Coetzer, G R Breese, O D
Gibson, P J Wiseman, G Onions, N Killeen.
Bowling: Daggett 8.2-1-39-2. Steyn 4-0-27-
0. Streak 4-0-11-1.

Warwickshire beat Durham by 39 runs (D/L Method)