Jennings and Weighell take Durham to victory

Jennings and Weighell take Durham to victory

Durham (313-5 off 39 overs) beat Warwickshire (241 all out off 38.2 overs) by 72 runs

A highest ever one-day hundred from captain Keaton Jennings and 5-57 in his first limited overs bowl for James Weighell saw Durham to a decisive 72 run win over Royal London Cup holders Warwickshire in a match restricted to 39 overs a piece.

After the match, Jennings reflected on the win, saying that scoring a big hundred against a high quality attack like Warwickshire’s was quite special. He gave full credit to Weighell too “He won us the game on his bowling debut,” he said.

Warwickshire’s Jonathan Trott who top-scored for the Bears with 92, was philosophical about the defeat. “We didn’t hit our straps straight away in the field and paid the penalty. We’ve got to put this performance to bed because we’ve got another game tomorrow.”

As you might expect, Trott called it correctly. If Rikki Clarke had hung on to a difficult low chance at second slip off Stephen Cook in the first over, the whole pattern of the game might have been different.

As it was, Cook and Jennings enjoyed an opening stand of 129 off 19.1 overs before Cook fell for 60. Michael Richardson gave good support but it was Jennings’ innings of 139 in just 101 balls that was decisive. He hit 19 fours and two sixes, showing a range and power of strokes that he has seldom displayed before in one-day cricket.

Of the Warwickshire bowlers, just Jeetan Patel showed any control but what Warwickshire needed was wickets. The only bowlers to claim any victims were the two youngsters, Aaron Thomason and Grant Thornton. But they came at a price, the two conceding 110 runs off 11 overs. Never mind, it is a steep learning curve and they will have benefited from the experience of playing against top-class batsmen on a good pitch with a short boundary on the one side.

When Warwickshire batted, they lost wickets at regular intervals and were never in touch with the required rate. What Trott needed was someone to make a dynamic contribution to support his well-crafted 92 off 81 balls. Tim Ambrose did his best with a neat 41 off 38 and Thomason’s 28 suggested that he may have the makings of an all-rounder.

Though Weighell was the main wicket-taker for Durham, both Chris Rushworth and the fit-again Mark Wood showed a sharpness of pace and a control of line and length that the Warwickshire seamers had lacked.

Overall, this was a well-deserved win for Durham. Having started on minus two points, they are now in the black. Warwickshire will lick their wounds and hope to come back quickly tomorrow.

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