MATCH PREVIEW: Durham v Lancashire Lightning
Lancashire’s busy week on the road continues in the North East with a clash against a buoyant Durham side.
Durham v Lancashire Lightning
Vitality Blast, North Group
Friday June 2, 2023, 6.30pm
The Seat Unique Riverside
The Red Rose are looking to bounce back from a pair of away defeats to Birmingham on Monday and Yorkshire at Headingley last night, the latter by 15 runs chasing 196.
Durham, the Chester-le-Street outfit, have enjoyed a mightily impressive start to 2023 in both red and white ball cricket. They are top of the Division Two Championship table after five rounds and have won two from three at the start of the Blast, sitting firmly in the mix for a quarter-final place.
They are under the captaincy of Alex Lees in white ball cricket this year, while Australian former Dutch head coach Ryan Campbell is in his first season in charge of the county.
This marks the first of two key weekend fixtures for the Lightning, who also travel to face another challenger in Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge on Sunday.
Lancashire are aiming for win number four from six in the Blast.
Opposition:
Things are going swimmingly for Durham this summer. They could hardly have asked for better.
The County Championship form has been outstanding, winning four of six matches and sitting 39 points, clear of third-placed Worcestershire. Work to do yet, but they will be confident of returning to Division One for the first time since 2016.
That same season, they reached the final of the Blast, beaten by Northamptonshire with Keaton Jennings a part of their side.
If their early-season T20 form is anything to go by, there is no reason why they can’t qualify for Edgbaston once more.
Ryan Campbell has had a big influence since replacing James Franklin at the helm.
While England Test fast bowler Matthew Potts has had a huge influence on the red ball form, the likes of Lees, Ollie Robinson and Graham Clark have enjoyed success in the Blast.
Opener Clark scored an opening night century against Northants, Lees scored 90 in beating Yorkshire and wicketkeeper Robinson, a winter recruit from Kent, has expertly provided support.
Durham have signed all-round duo Ashton Turner from Australia and Wayne Parnell from South Africa as their overseas players for this competition.
Despite their impressive start, they are bidding to bounce back from defeat, last time out against Nottinghamshire at the Riverside on Monday evening. They failed to defend 168-6, losing by five wickets.
Opposing player to watch:
Former Kent wicketkeeper-batter Ollie Robinson was an eye-catching winter recruit having spent a short loan spell with Durham during last season‘s Blast.
Robinson played a good portion of cricket down at Canterbury, but when Sam Billings became available, he found himself out of the side. In search for more regular cricket, he opted to up sticks from one end of the country to the other.
He is a 24-year-old with a high ceiling. It would be absolutely no surprise to see him one day play in the same England team as his namesake from Sussex.
Robinson has a versatile batting game, mixing power with poise. He has scored four fifties in a 35-game T20 career. Two of those have come in the early stages of the season’s Blast with him batting at number four.
Previous meeting:
Lancashire have a fantastic Blast record on this ground, despite losing there last June by two wickets as the hosts only just chased down 131.
That was the first of two scheduled meetings between the two for last season, though the return fixture at Blackpool later in the month was washed out after only 17.4 overs of play Lancashire were 133-6 when the rain arrived at Stanley Park.
Durham also beat Lancashire at the Riverside in 2021, but that was their first home win in this fixture since 2011.
The Lightning won at the Riverside for eight successive seasons between 2013 and 2020. The last win there during the Covid summer, came on the back of a brilliant, Keaton Jennings century. Unfortunately, the skipper won’t feature against his former county in this one as he continues his recovery from a hamstring injury.
What they said:
Liam Livingstone reflected on last night’s Roses defeat, but was determined to look forwards quickly as Lancashire aim to re-assert themselves in the race for the quarter-finals.
“It’s pretty disappointing,” he said. “We probably could have kept them to 10-15 runs fewer had we read the conditions a bit better. Ultimately, I think we should have chased it. But it is what it is, we move on.
“We should have changed the pace quicker (in the powerplay). One of our strengths has been going with seam first three or four overs, but maybe we should have gone to spin earlier or chatted to the bowlers about going to slower balls.
“I think the power we’ve got in our line-up, we back ourselves to chase anything. But we lost wickets at key times.”
Livingstone added: “It’s a long tournament, and we’re five games into a 14-game tournament.
“The more you reflect on things that haven’t gone well, you can kind of get caught up in that. We’ll move on to Durham and go again.”
How’s Stat:
In the history of the Blast at the Riverside, Lancashire have won 11 times to Durham’s four.