Durham thwarted by rain

Graham Onions had success against Surrey's batsmen

Durham were left frustrated after an excellent morning’s work when rain prevented any play after 2.45pm in the LV County Championship Division One match against Surrey at Chester-le-Street.

Durham were 76 for two in their second innings, 117 ahead, after taking the last eight Surrey wickets for only 66 runs, dismissing the visitors for 183.

England Lions seamer Graham Onions, who had taken the first three of the four wickets to fall on Thursday, produced the perfect leg-stump yorker to send back left-hander Usman Afzaal with the fifth ball of the day.

The next over brought the dismissal of 19-year-old Chris Jordan for a three-ball duck as the highly-rated all-rounder was left stranded by Ali Brown’s indecision over a run to cover.

Jordan was committed and had no chance of beating Dale Benkenstein’s direct hit at the non-striker’s end.

Four overs later Neil Killeen had Matt Nicholson lbw for four, and the same bowler drew Jimmy Ormond into a low edge to second slip, where Michael Di Venuto held the catch.

Kyle Coetzer began his innings promisingly © Getty Images

Phil Mustard failed to hang on to an inside edge from Brown off Mark Davies, but the bowler had his reward when a wild swing by Saqlain Mushtaq resulted in an edge into the keeper’s gloves.

Steve Harmison, brought on for the day’s 15th over, took his only wicket of the innings when Brown was last out for 38.

The batsman steered a short ball to third man, where Killeen tumbled forward to hold a good catch. Onions took 4-73 and Killeen 3-40.

When Durham began their second innings Di Venuto was almost run out in the first over for the second time in the match.

He took a risky single to cover to get off the mark and 12th man James Benning threw down the non-striker’s stumps, but umpire Barrie Leadbeater gave the Tasmanian left-hander the benefit of the doubt.

Di Venuto continued his lean start, however, when he was lbw to Ormond for 14 and his opening partner, Mark Stoneman, fell for 23 in off-spinner Saqlain’s second over.

The left-hander was stuck on the crease as he shaped to play to leg and the ball turned just enough to beat the bat.

Kyle Coetzer and Neil McKenzie quickly profited when Jordan replaced Pedro Collins.

The youngster bowled well in the first innings, but this time he was pulled for two fours in his first over by McKenzie and Coetzer also found the leg-side boundary twice two overs later.

Coetzer was on 22 and McKenzie 11 when the rain arrived and hope of a resumption was abandoned at 5.30pm.