SECOND XI REPORT: Flintoff hits half century in drawn game with Durham
Rocky Flintoff made an unbeaten fifty as Lancashire and Durham played out a draw on the final day of this Second XI Championship match at Emirates Old Trafford with the visitors on 61-1 in their second innings and leading by 20 runs, after Lancashire had earlier declared their first innings on 391-7, when rain brought an early end to the game in the afternoon.
Both teams made substitutions ahead of the final day with George Lavelle and Tom Aspinwall called up for first team duties and replaced by Cian Dickinson and Joe Moores in the Lancashire side, while Danny Hogg and Bas De Leede joined the Durham first team squad with Nathan Sowter the sole replacement.
Those changes meant Lavelle (107) and Aspinwall (27) retired not out with Rocky Flintoff and Saqib Mahmood resuming the Lancashire innings on 262-5. Flintoff hit three sixes, all pulled over midwicket, and two fours in making exactly 50 off 78 balls and he was matched in the boundary count by Josh Boyden who made an enterprising run-a-ball 32 in a 55-run partnership with Flintoff for the sixth wicket.
Earlier Luke Robinson had produced two great deliveries to bowl Mahmood for 20 and Dickinson with a first ball yorker while Sowter accounted for Moores, via a top-edged sweep, as three wickets fell for 8 runs.
There was a period where Corey Flintoff joined brother Rocky in the middle, but the former fell to a second great diving catch in the innings by George Drissell at midwicket for 9 just before lunch and Lancashire declared during the interval with a 41-run lead.
That enabled Mahmood to get another five-over spell under his belt as he eases back into action, while Charlie Barnard struck with his third ball when Drissell holed out to Harry Birkman at long-off for 13 to leave the visitors 28-1.
Michael Jones (39 not out) and Jon Bushnell (9 not out) had moved the score onto 61-1 when rain took the players from the field at 2.35pm with the game abandoned as a draw at 3.50pm.
Lancashire gain a total of 6 points, after having had 6 points deducted for a slow over rate, and Durham 13.
TEAMS
Lancashire: Harry Singh, Kesh Fonseka, George Lavelle (wkt), Rocky Flintoff, Tom Aspinwall, Josh Boyden, Corey Flintoff, Saqib Mahmood (capt), Charlie Barnard, Haider Hussain, Harry Birkman, Charlie Parkinson.
Substitutes: Cian Dickinson and Joe Moores replaced Tom Aspinwall and George Lavelle at the end of day 3. Wicketkeeping change: Joe Moores replaced George Lavelle at the end of day 3.
Durham: Ben McKinney (capt), Haydon Mustard (wkt), Jon Bushnell, Bas de Leede, George Drissell, Danny Hogg, Callum Gaffney, Mitch Killeen, Michael Jones, Oliver Gibson, George Darwood, Luke Robinson.
Substitutes: Danny Hogg and Bas De Leede left the team with Nathan Sowter the sole replacement at the end of day 3.