Report: Bears Men vs Durham Men, Vitality Blast

Bears fell to a three-wicket defeat against Durham in their Vitality Blast match at EdgBLASTon.

Bears were 143 all out from exactly 20 overs after only Sam Hain (45 from 28 balls) came close to salvaging the innings from the poor start of four for three. Durham bowled superbly as a unit with Jimmy Neesham taking three wickets and Callum Parkinson, Nathan Sowter and Ben Raine two apiece.

Ollie Robinson (45, 36) and Graham Clark (40, 23) then lifted Durham to 147 for seven with 17 balls to spare to condemn –The Bears to back-to-back defeats to start their campaign.

Durham chose to bowl and started brilliantly, reducing the Bears to four for three after 17 balls. Parkinson’s first over yielded just one run but two wickets as Alex Davies pulled to backward square leg and Tom Latham holed out to deep mid-wicket. Zak Foulkes added the wicket of Moeen Ali, caught at short fine leg.

Hain and Ed Barnard (23, 18) cranked the innings into motion, but Durham’s attack prevented the big individual contribution that was required. 

Raine was brought on and yorked Barnard with his fourth ball. Sowter was brought back on and rattled Kai Smith’s off-stump through a defeated cut. Hain lifted Neesham to extra cover. Sowter removed George Garton, lbw reverse-sweeping. 

The lower order fiddled a few scrappy runs, but the innings ended when Danny Briggs lifted the final ball from Neesham to long on. It was excellent work by Durham.

The Bears badly needed early wickets, and Barnard supplied two, forcing Lees to play on and having Colin Ackermann caught at cover. While Barnard’s first two overs cost just 12, however, the two from the other end, from Adam Sylvester and Moeen, leaked 32 to give Durham a rapid start. They reached 50 in the fifth over.

Clark’s clean hitting concluded when he clipped Jake Lintott to mid-wicket. Raine and Neesham were bowled by Moeen going for big hits that were not needed, but Robinson and former Warwickshire captain Will Rhodes sensibly took their side to the brink of victory with a stand of 24 in 17 balls. 

Robinson holed out to Briggs with six still needed, but Rhodes saw his team to victory and hit the winning boundary.

Ian Westwood said, “The start killed us. Three down with four runs on the board put a lot on Hainy to get us to a score which he is good enough to do, and looked like he was going to today, but every time we got a bit of momentum we lost a wicket. That carried on all the way through, and we ended up limping to an under-par score.

“In these first two games, we have had a couple of guys trying to learn on the job, which is never ideal in pressure games, which all these group games are. We have got guys slowly coming back over the next couple of games which will be nice. We are looking forward to getting some experience back.

“I think Hasan Ali will be back on the 6th, Richard Gleeson on the 5th and I’m hoping Dan Mousley will be released from Lions as well. We are talking the loss of 12 banker overs there but that’s no excuse. We have got a squad for a reason and we were confident of getting something from these first two games but it hasn’t proved to be the case.”