County Championship: Worcs survive marathon Stokes spell to defy Durham

Worcestershire openers Daniel Lategan and Jake Libby began their side’s first innings in positive fashion and had taken their side to 60 without loss after 14 overs at lunch. However, the visitors lost three wickets in the first hour of the afternoon session, two of them to Stokes, who bowled for over an hour, taking 2-17 in a typically unsparing eight-over spell.

Lategan was caught at slip by Kasey Aldridge for 28 when trying to drive Stokes and Rehaan Edavalath followed him half an hour later for just a single when he attempted to work Stokes on the leg side but only miscued a chance to midwicket which Colin Ackermann sprinted in to scoop up.

Between those successes for the home side, Libby had reached fifty for the sixth time this season but the Worcestershire talisman was soon leg-before to Potts for 55, the ball keeping low and jagging back to give Ant Harris one of his easier decisions of the season.

That wicket left the Pears on 90, still 375 in arrears and things would have been even worse for them had Ben McKinney not dropped Hose at slip off Stokes before he had scored.

The Worcestershire batsman profited mightily from that let-off. He and D’Oliveira gradually batted with more assurance and Hose reached his fifty off 94 balls with seven boundaries. At tea, Worcestershire were 175-3 and perhaps it was wise if the spectators took a little refreshment given the evening session they were about to watch.

Switching to the Finchale End, Stokes bowled for well over an hour for the second time in the day, his analysis for the spell reading 10-1-22-0. It was a period of play that recalled the former England captain’s unsparing efforts on the second evening of the 2019 Headingley Test.

But the Durham pair passed their own test and set a new record for their county’s fourth-wicket in first-class cricket against Durham, eclipsing the 134-run stand shared by Tom Moody and Gavin Haynes at New Road in 1994.

Just when it seemed Hose and D’Oliveira would survive until stumps, the Pears skipper lost his middle stump to Potts’ first delivery with the new ball. Nightwatchman Ben Allison was then leg before to Ben Raine for nought in the final over of the day, further vindicating Alex Lees’ decision to take the new cherry.

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