Gannin’ to Lord’s

Durham supporter and TFT contributor Garreth Duncan previews the north-easterners’ bid to clinch the Royal London One-Day Cup this weekend.

In August 2007, Durham arrived at Lord’s to face Hampshire in our first major final. We were rank underdogs, having not had a sniff of a trophy in 15 years as a first-class county. Shane Warne won the toss and put us in to bat, thinking he’d be back in Southampton by tea time.

But with little expectation on us, we played without fear and dominated from start to finish. An early morning blast-off from Phil “Colonel” Mustard set us on our way, and everyone contributed with the bat to take us past 300. Ottis Gibson roared in and blew away Hampshire’s top order, KP and all, and a first trophy was ours.

Seven years, three Championships and countless fairytale references after that breakthrough cup win, we’re back. But this year’s one-day cup run has rescued a season in which our already-thin squad has been badly hit by injuries – even our fabled pace attack has been stretched to its limits, most notably by Graeme Onions’ absence for most of the season.

Our Championship defence quickly turned to a battle against relegation, with safety secured only last week, and we looked clueless as ever in a T20 campaign which, a few fireworks from the Colonel apart, just never got going.

The 50-over competition didn’t start too well either, as winning positions against both Kent and Sussex both slipped away, and even 300-plus proved insufficient on Taunton’s featherbed. But a late run to the final was inspired by two England all-rounders at opposite ends of their careers.

Paul Collingwood showed even at 38 he can still cut it with both bat and ball, with some miserly spells of bowling and a critical fifty in the final group match against Surrey. Ben Stokes, returning to his county with a point to prove to the England selectors, found some batting form with a hundred in the group stage against in-form Notts to keep our hopes alive, followed by a brutal, brilliant 164 against the same opponents in the semi-final which propelled us back to Lord’s.

Admiral Collingwood has happily postponed his retirement and decided to play on for another season.  But he has returned to the ranks in the one-day team, led by his heir apparent Mark Stoneman, who has grown into the role over this season and showed he’s ready for the job full time when Colly finally decides to call it a day.

Stoneman has continued his sparkling one-day form from last season, playing some important knocks in the group stages, before a battling hundred in the quarter-final on a tough Headingley pitch as we surprised champions Yorkshire (the team we just love to beat – it still irks them that they no longer have a monopoly on cricket east of the Pennines).

We will have to make the trip to Lord’s without John Hastings, the reliable Aussie who’s manfully plugged the gaps in our seam bowling attack all season and played the odd thumping cameo down the order. He will miss the final as his IPL team have called him up for Champions League T20 duty. But his absence may give a chance to Paul Coughlin, the latest graduate from our academy who announced his first team arrival in spectacular fashion by belting 85 from number 10 on debut and has regularly chipped in with important wickets.

Durham will no doubt start as underdogs again against T20 winners Warwickshire (or whatever their marketing department rebrands them for the final). But if traditional September conditions at Lord’s favour our seamers, who’d bet against the cup returning to the north east?