Durham beat Glamorgan by nine wickets after making light work of run chase

22 June 2017 05:54

Durham coasted to their first Specsavers County Championship win of the season after making light work of a second-innings run chase to beat Glamorgan by nine wickets at Chester-le-Street.

Stephen Cook led the way with an unbeaten 89 from 78 balls in his final appearance while Cameron Steel survived three difficult chances to make 51 off 58 balls as Durham reached their 157 target with 18.3 overs to spare.

Cook worked the ball into leg-side spaces before cutting Marchant de Lange to the rope as he scored 34 off the 54 which came off the first 10 overs.

With their seamers making no impression, Glamorgan turned to Andrew Salter's off spin and Cook drove him wide of mid-off for his sixth four to reach 50 off 49 balls.

Two similar strokes for his eighth and ninth fours brought the winning runs.

Only 28 were needed when Salter persuaded Steel to chip a catch to deep mid-off, allowing Jack Burnham to assist in completing the task with an unbeaten 14.

After resuming on 92 for two, Glamorgan were dismissed for 263 in their second innings, with Colin Ingram left unbeaten on 70, made off 137 balls with seven fours and a pulled six.

Barry McCarthy finished with four for 65 after briefly coming under fire from nightwatchman Lukas Carey. After conceding 16 runs in 11 overs, McCarthy went for 26 in two, which included a six over long-on.

But when he needed one for his second half-century in successive games, Carey got carried away and had his stumps splattered when he swung round an in-swinger from Chris Rushworth.

Three wickets had gone down for five runs in three overs when McCarthy pinned Aneurin Donald lbw with a shooter and had David Lloyd well caught at second slip by Ryan Pringle off an edged drive.

Ingram survived a difficult chance to Steel at cover off McCarthy, but was otherwise untroubled and was kept company for 16 overs after lunch by Tom Cullen on his championship debut. But after making 13 he shouldered arms and lost his off stump to a Rushworth in-swinger in the sixth over of the new ball.

De Lange threatened to take it away from Durham in a ninth-wicket stand of 40 in six overs but Rushworth clung on to a return catch from a fierce drive then three overs later Michael Hogan played across the line and was bowled off his pads by McCarthy.

Source: PA