Durham’s clash against Worcestershire ends in a high-scoring draw

Durham and Worcestershire played out a draw on the final day of their LV= Insurance County Championship Division Two clash as 1,294 runs werescoredandonly17wickets fell over the course of the contest at Seat Unique Riverside.

The Pears began the day 431-6, still 211 behind the home side’s first innings total, and although Paul Coughlin made early inroads, a finalwicket stand from Gareth

Roderick and Dillon Pennington of 69 saved the follow-on for the visitors.

Worcestershire were eventually dismissed for 550, handing the hosts a lead of 92 to take into their second innings.

However, with little time remaining, the north east outfit batted out the game with an unbeaten century stand between Rachin Ravindra and Michael Jones before the two sides shook hands on a draw.

The hosts claimed 14 points from their fifth stalemate of the campaign, while the Pears took 13, leaving Worcestershire once place above Durham in fourth in Division Two.

Durham coach James Franklin said: "It has been a tough couple of Championship matches between us and Worcestershire this year that have both ended in draws.

"A lot of runs were piled on and there were some nice milestones for batters and a lot of hard work for the bowlers.

"I don't think we've seen that a lot at the Riverside in recent history, but we have seen a little bit of it this season.

"Maybe things are changing here. We relaid the wicket here 18 months ago, last season it was bedding down and this season we might be seeing the fruits of that renovation.

"Thepitcheshavebeengood wickets, and the groundsman has left more grass on than he ever has, but we're just seeing wickets that are really good to bat on. We've got to keep looking forward, we've still got a good amount of points out of this game.

"We wanted to try and push for the win that's why we batted so big because we wanted to put some scoreboard pressure on them.

"Fair play to Worcestershire they withstood it. We need to look forward and figure out a way to take 20 wickets. Through the course of this Championship season that's the one thing that we have not been able to do.

"We've got the runs, but we need to keep banging our heads together to get those wickets."