COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION ONE, Riverside:
CLOSE OF PLAY, DAY THREE: Durham 273 and 106-2 beat Warwickshire 135 and 238 by eight wickets (Durham 19pts, Warwicks 3pts)
19-22 August 2009

Durham stretched their lead at the top of the County Championship to beyond 40 points as they eased to an eight-wicket Riverside win against Warwickshire.

Jim Troughton held up the reigning county champions with his second century of the summer (111).

But, once he had gone, Warwickshire folded, losing their final five wickets for 37 runs in being rolled for 238.

Durham then got home on 106-2, with Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Michael Di Venuto both unbeaten on 41 at the end.

It was only Warwickshire's second Championship defeat of the summer. But, with four games left, it now leaves them seriously looking over their shoulders at the threat behind from Sussex, Yorkshire and Hampshire.

At the start of this round of matches, only 15 points separated the four counties. And, with the Bears having only picked up three points from their trip to the Riverside, and their three rivals all likely to draw (and, in Hampshire's case, possibly even win) the table on Saturday night could look even more congested.

Warwickshire had started the day well as Troughton and Rikki Clarke survived the first half hour before a 30-minute rain break. But, on the resumption, spinner Ian Blackwell came on for the second over and struck with his third ball when Clarke miscued to deep mid-off.

At that point, the Bears led by just 12 runs with 17-year-old Ateeq Javid coming in to join Troughton.

The Birmingham-born youngster took 32 balls to get off the mark, scoring just three in his first 75 minutes at the crease. But that allowed Troughton to proceed steadily to his first hundred since April.

It was his first significant score since making a double century in the second game of the season at home to Hampshire. And he had failed to reach 20 in his previous 10 innings.

But he finally departed when he edged Blackwell to Di Venuto at slip. And that allowed seamer Mark Davies, unused until mid-afternoon despite overnight figures of 9-0-10-0, to rip through the tail and claim a season's best 3-19.

Javid had just begun to play some strokes, reaching 21, when Davies produced a beauty, which lifted and left him to earn a big edge on its way to Phil Mustard.

Davies then pinned Chris Woakes lbw in his next over, the flailing Sreesanth edged Mitch Claydon to Chanderpaul at first slip and finally Naqqash Tahir drove Davies to mid-on.

Warwickshire were without first innings five-wicket hero Boyd Rankin, who has suffered a groin injury that will rule him out of Ireland's one-day international against England.

But there was never much doubt that Durham would reach their target. And, on his first appearance since rejoining Durham for the season's final month, Chanderpaul made up for his first innings duck.

The West Indian Test star finished it with a blaze of strokes, lifting Ant Botha's left-arm spin over long-on for six to complete the task.

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