Once again Worcestershire named an unchanged team, this time for the Friends Life t20 match against Durham at the Emirates Durham International Cricket Ground (though normally called just Riverside). Durham won the toss and elected to bowl first in bright sunny conditions on a good looking pitch. Worcestershire made an early impact with a wicket the second ball of the match with Phil Mustard bowled for 0 by Jack Shantry.
Coming it at number three in the order for Durham Ian Blackwell produced a man of the match performance with an innings of 77 of just 59 deliveries, including 10 boundaries, despite surviving a couple very close LBW shouts. Blackwell completed a 3rd wicket stand of 71 with Paul Collingwood before being caught & bowled off Shakib Al-Hasan.
Durham skipper Dale Benkenstein scored a quick fire 22 off 11 balls late in the innings to guide the home side to a respectable par total of 161-6 from their 20 overs. Once again Saeed Ajmal proved to be the most dangerous of the Worcestershire bowlers with figures of 3-22 from his 4 overs.
In reply Worcestershire recovered from a dropped catch off the 2nd ball of the innings to make a good start in their reply and were on course on 57-1 by the end of the power play overs. However it it was the introduction of the the medium pace of Paul Collingwood that changed the match in the favour of the home side. Collingwood picked up two wickets in his first over, with Moeen Ali stumped for 29 and Shakib Al-Hasan caught and bowled the very next ball.
Collingwood finished with figures of 4-19 from his four overs and Dale Benkenstein 1-25, who picked up the key wicket of Alexei Kervezee for 26. Durham used only one over of spin in contrast to Worcestershire's bowling attack. Boundaries were hard to come by for the visitors with the Durham bowlers bowling a good line and length. The boundary count ended up as 21 to 13 in favour of the home side. Wickets fell at regular intervals as the required run rate increased in the later overs of the innings with Worcestershire eventually being dismissed for 133 on the first ball of the last over.
During this match Saeed Ajmal passed 100 career T20 wickets and Alexei Kervezee passed 500 career T20 runs.
Durham (161-6) beat Worcestershire (133) by 28 runs.
