Durham won the toss and elected to bat first, taking into account the 82 overs bowled on the wicket during last Friday’s ODI. Ruel Brathwaite was named in the final eleven ahead of Mitchell Claydon and will make his Durham debut this week.
The Durham openers put on 25 for the first wicket with Mark Stoneman caught behind in Charl Willoughby’s third over for 15. Michael Di Venuto was dismissed shortly after, out lbw to Phillips for 18.
Gordon Muchall and Dale Benkenstein guided Durham past the hundred mark, with the latter reaching fifty from 77 deliveries, including nine boundaries.
At the close of play Durham were 132-2, Benkenstein 71* and Muchall 23*, the pair posting a partnership of 99.
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At the close of play we spoke to Gordon Muchall, “It’s a pretty good wicket and the conditions have been good for bowling so it has been tough and it was important for us to get through tonight losing as few wickets as possible and going in to score well tomorrow.
“They bowled pretty well, they didn’t give us too many easy scoring shots, obviously we got a few down to third man and inside edged a few, we just needed to ticket the overs over. We’ve not had the season we would have liked and this is our last chance to undo a few wrongs so we’re trying our hardest to win.”