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Essex’s Championship challenge foundered at The Kia Oval a few days ago and as spectators gathered again at Chelmsford, the air was thick with inquests. It was thick with humidity, too, which is about as close as it has got to raining in these parts this summer, and in that atmosphere, Nick Browne reminded everyone of his worth with his second hundred of the season.Somerset, who find themselves part of a West Country bottom two, had imagined they were catching Essex at a good time with their title ambitions over – although an even better time would have been with Simon Harmer absent with South Africa for the upcoming Test series against England. As it was, Browne supervised a successful Essex day, batting the entire day for 129 out of 281 for 3.Chelmsford remains parched. It gets roughly half the annual rain that falls upon the likes of Manchester and Cardiff in an average summer. The outfield at the River End of the ground is in a terrible state, worn and bumpy with drainage ditches clearly visible. Field in this area at your peril.Centuries have tended to come this season from Essex’s more celebrated opener, Alastair Cook, who has made four of their 10 in the Championship this season. Browne, a big, lumbering sort, often guarded in his strokeplay, is not really designed to wrest attention, but he is the most wholehearted of cricketers. They remain an opening partnership to be reckoned with and he played well.Browne told blithely how he and Cook used to keep a tally over the season about who got out first before it was abandoned for his own good. “It is always hard to get out after him,” he said. “We used to have a little competition but I always seemed to lose it because he is too good.”How many England players as distinguished as Cook will remain true to county cricket in the future? Nearly four years have passed since he bowed out of Test cricket against India at The Oval, but he appears to have settled back into Championship life with equanimity and he looked untroubled in making 44 before Peter Siddle cut one back to have him lbw, the third time he has dismissed him in the Championship this season.The extension of Marcus Trescothick’s career in county cricket with Somerset felt like a prolonged farewell tour with the Taunton crowd outpouring its gratitude for every extra season, almost every extra run. Trescothick’s presence at Somerset was heartfelt, of course, because of the mental health issues that had ended his England career prematurely. Essex’s ties with Cook, while just as strong, are perhaps more understated; less emotional. Both, though, might be figures from a different age.Related

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With England now pulling around 30 players out of county cricket from an early age to feed a never-ending international schedule, and with the future county fixture list once again awash with uncertainty, it invites questions whether club loyalties of the best players can possibly remain as strong in a changing landscape. Then you think of Joe Root and imagining him settling back with Yorkshire many years from hence and maybe for some it remains perfectly possible. Perhaps it is not the nature of the competition, but the nature of the man.Essex’s opening pair are easy to tell apart: Cook, willowy and contemplative, accumulating quietly, rarely drawing attention to himself; Browne, more hunched and thick-set and capable of occasional moments of pugnacity, his speciality the sort of punched drive through extra cover, off Siddle that brought him a most diligent hundred. He had sweated it out for 13 balls on 99, including a play-and-miss against Kasey Aldridge, one of the few times his outside edge was beaten. Siddle, who has also played at Essex awarded it a fist-bump of respect.During the morning, Somerset had an injury scare for Craig Overton, who has been released by England to play in this match. He limped away from an over after having problems with the footholes, and also missed part of the morning session after jarring his shoulder in the field.All Somerset’s wickets on an unresponsive pitch came in the afternoon session. Tom Westley drove at Overton, back with no long-term damage, to be caught at slip, and Dan Lawrence slumped in disbelief when he cut the last ball of the afternoon session, a wide long-hop from Matt Renshaw, an occasional offspinner, to slip. Renshaw finished off a wearying day by bowling Browne a bouncer off a few paces which he duly ducked underneath.Paul Walter had his aggressive moments for an unbeaten 57, never more so than when he lofted Jack Leach for a straight six during 27 unrewarding overs for England’s premier spin bowler. Few anticipate that Harmer will be as unproductive as the game progresses.

Mominul Haque, the Bangladesh Test captain, is among nine players who will be unavailable for the National Cricket League’s (NCL) second round starting on Monday. Haque tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this month, though he had since tested negative before the first round of the NCL and subsequently played for his team Chittagong Division in the match that started on March 22. Haque had also tested Covid-19 positive last November and shown “mild symptoms” then.Shadman Islam and Ebadot Hossain, both Test hopefuls who also tested positive recently, are also out of action in the upcoming round. Shadman didn’t turn out for his side, Dhaka Metropolis, in the first round, but Ebadot played for Sylhet Division before being replaced by Rejaur Rahman Raja on the third day after testing positive during the game.All three players will be considered for the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka in mid-April, which is why they are being kept away from domestic cricket and rested for now.Six other players’ reports have returned “invalid” test results, according to the BCB, and as such their participation in the second round of the NCL has been put on hold.The first-class NCL is the first major domestic competition in Bangladesh this season. It will be followed by the List A Dhaka Premier League, which begins in May.Meanwhile, the South African women’s emerging side arrived in Dhaka on Sunday. After a three-day quarantine period, they will play five one-day matches against the Bangladesh emerging side in Sylhet from April 4 to 13.The Pakistan Under-19 team is also scheduled to arrive in Bangladesh on April 12, to play a four-day match and a five-match Youth ODI series against the Bangladesh Under-19s, in Sylhet and Dhaka. They will depart on May 6.Bangladesh have already hosted West Indies senior men’s team earlier this year, for a three-match ODI and a two-match Test series in January-February. Their men’s team is currently in New Zealand on their first international tour since the start of the pandemic.

As it happenedFor the second-day running, the 2019 World Cup witnessed a no-result that forced Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to walk away with one point each.This is the fifth World Cup being staged in England, and incredibly this one has already witnessed two abandonments (cancellations without toss), the most-ever in a single edition.Sri Lanka, who already endured a washout against Pakistan, now have two points courtesy rain, which effectively amounts to second win. For Bangladesh, the situation is dire as they are in the bottom half of the points table with just a solitary win in four outings.Wednesday in Bristol dawned dark and grey with heavy overnight showers dashing hopes of a prompt 10.30am start. In fact, the teams were back at their hotel until noon, before Sri Lanka arrived to some frenetic activity in the outfield.ALSO READ – Sidharth Monga’s tour diary about BristolAs many as three pitch inspections had to be called off at different stages because of heavy rain. And while the groundstaff tried their best to flush out the water that had seeped into the outfield, the persistent and steady rain eventually put paid to hopes of even a 20-over shootout. The match officials eventually called off the game at 1.55 pm BST.The result aside, Bangladesh will have a nervy next few days, sweating over the fitness of Shakib Al Hasan, who was a doubtful starter for this fixture having picked up a thigh injury at training.There was some sombre news in the Sri Lankan camp too, with Lasith Malinga set to dash home to Colombo for the funeral of his mother-in-law. He is, however, likely to return in time for Sri Lanka’s next clash against Australia on Saturday.

England captain Heather Knight has heralded her side’s upcoming series in Malaysia against Pakistan as the start of “a new era”, and an opportunity to move on from this summer’s Ashes thrashing.After being roundly beaten by a 12-4 margin against Australia, England parted company with head coach Mark Robinson, who had taken charge back in 2015.Lisa Keightley, the former Perth Scorchers coach, has taken over, but will not start her new role officially until January, leaving only a matter of weeks to stamp her mark on the side before the T20 World Cup in Australia in February.ALSO READ: Five things on Keightley’s to-do list as England coachAli Maiden, who served as Robinson’s assistant and will continue in the same job under Keightley, will coach the team in Malaysia, though Keightley is set to join up with the tour for the T20I leg.”We’ve made a few changes with Robbo [Robinson] not being head coach [any] more,” Knight told the BBC’s Test Match Special, “and we’ve put a lot of hard work in as a group, and made a few changes from a team point of view as well.”We’re really excited to get out and see if those changes have come to fruition.”Lisa’s going to come towards the end of the tour and doesn’t take over officially until January. We’re all really excited to start a new era as a team and move on from what was a tough period for us in the Ashes.”England have made several personnel changes since the summer, signalling a changing of the guard. Experienced allrounders Georgia Elwiss and Laura Marsh have dropped out of the squad, while uncapped legspinner Sarah Glenn, 24-year-old seamer Freya Davies, and 22-year-old spinner Kirstie Gordon come into the squad.Mady Villiers, the 21-year-old offspinner who took 2-20 on T20I debut against Australia, is also expected to play a bigger role in the series, while Jenny Gunn and Sarah Taylor have both retired.”We’ve picked quite a young squad actually,” said Knight. “We picked the squad with half an eye on the World Cup, which comes around in Februrary, and it’s a massive chance for these girls to impress.”Some of them have had a little taste of international cricket, some of them have had no taste of international cricket [at all]. So it’s a chance for them to show what they’ve done in tournaments like the KSL and see if they can transfer it into international cricket.”It is an exciting period – it’s also a time of a little bit of uncertainty with Lisa not starting yet, so it’s up to us as players to make sure we’re leading ourselves and being really clear on how we go about things and how we do things as individuals and as a team for the new coach to come in. It’s a really exciting time for people to reinvent themselves if they want to as well.”England are clear favourites for both the ODI and T20I series, not least with Pakistan’s talismanic Sana Mir missing the series to “plan and reset my future objectives and targets”. The first ODI is on Monday, December 9 at Kinrara Oval in Kuala Lumpar.

South Africa Women’s offspinner Raisibe Ntozakhe has been cleared to bowl in international cricket again by the ICC, following remedial work after she was banned for an illegal bowling action. Ntozakhe was found to have an illegal action in October 2018 and was suspended from bowling in international cricket on the day she was named in South Africa’s squad for the T20 World Cup.Ntozakhe was reported during an ODI against West Indies in September 2018 in Barbados and had undergone an independent assessment of her bowling action at the University of Pretoria. The assessment revealed that all of her deliveries exceeded the 15-degree level of tolerance permitted under the regulations. On Thursday, the ICC announced that after further assessment, her elbow extension was found to be within the limit.”Ntozakhe’s remodelled bowling action was assessed at the University of Pretoria on 10 September, where it was revealed that the amount of elbow extension was within the 15-degree level of tolerance permitted under the ICC Illegal Bowling Regulations,” the ICC said in a release.”Match officials may still report Ntozakhe if they believe she is displaying a suspect action and not reproducing the legal action from the reassessment. To assist the match officials, they will be provided with the report, images and video footage of the bowler’s legal bowling action.”The 24-year-old had still managed to be among the women centrally contracted by Cricket South Africa in 2019 but missed out in the following year.

Sri Lanka’s Wanindu Hasaranga has leapfrogged Afghanistan’s new T20I captain Rashid Khan to be ranked career-best No. 2 among T20I bowlers. The ICC rankings list is led by South Africa’s Tabraiz Shamsi, who has a 72-point advantage following impressive returns on the tour of the Caribbean and Ireland earlier this month.As many as six wristspinners feature in the top 10 – the others being Adil Rashid (fourth), Adam Zampa (seventh) and Ish Sodhi (ninth). Hasaranga will have an opportunity to establish a lead over Khan, who is just one point behind, during the second and third T20Is against India this week. The 23-year-old legspinner picked 2 for 28 during the series opener in Colombo on Sunday.Bhuvneshwar Kumar, India’s vice-captain on tour, jumped four places to be ranked 16th, while Yuzvendra Chahal, whose tight spell reined in Sri Lanka in the first T20I, jumped 10 places to be ranked 21st. Fast bowler Dushmantha Chameera also moved up five places to 37th spot.

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The other gainers include India’s stand-in captain Shikhar Dhawan, who is joint-29th with Reeza Hendricks. The South Africa opener made a 48-ball 69, his sixth T20I half-century, in an impressive 127-run opening stand to help South Africa clean sweep Ireland in Belfast last week.In the ODI arena, Josh Hazlewood made significant gains following an excellent tour of the Caribbean, jumping to No. 2 after taking five wickets and starring in Australia’s 2-1 series win. His new-ball partner Mitchell Starc, who also came up with a Player-of-the-Series performance in picking 11 wickets, jumped 10 places to be ranked eighth. The list is headed by New Zealand’s Trent Boult.Among the batters, Alex Carey jumped three places to be ranked just outside the top-20 (22nd), while Avishka Fernando, who struck a match-winning half-century against India to lift Sri Lanka off the bottom of the World Cup Super League points table, is now ranked 52nd.

James Vince stroked 60 from 38 and Chris Jordan produced a late cameo with the bat as Southern Brave finally got their campaign up and running with victory under the lights at the Ageas Bowl. Liam Livingstone produced his first significant contribution of the Hundred with an unbeaten half-century and Adam Milne’s 3 for 15 had seemingly set up Birmingham Phoenix for a narrow victory – only for Tom Helm to blink first against Jordan in the final set of five.For the third game running, Brave conceded a century stand (no other men’s team has done so even once), as Livingstone and Miles Hammond lifted Phoenix from a precarious 47 for 3 after 37. Jake Lintott picked up 2 for 13 while Liam Dawson was also frugal – but neither bowled their full allocation as Brave’s big guns, Tymal Mills and Jordan, again proved expensive, Livingstone hauling Phoenix up above 150 with a boundary from the final ball of the innings.Vince led the Brave charge but Milne removed Quinton de Kock cheaply and Devon Conway suffered the rare indignity during his time in England of being made to look human, producing a scratchy 34 from 27. Conway took 21 balls to score a boundary and then had his stumps rearranged by the returning Milne, leaving 32 needed from 19.Jordan struck a vital boundary off Helm and Milne produced a late blip by delivering a wide and a no-ball in his final set, bringing the equation down to single figures. With Phoenix failing to bowl the 95th ball before the cut-off, they were made to bring an extra fielder up inside the ring – and their poor timekeeping was to prove costly, as Jordan thrashed Helm into the newly-created gap at deep square leg, before a wide and a dropped catch by Benny Howell at deep midwicket was followed by another wide as Jordan scrambled Brave over the line.Lintott provides cutting edge
Despite a much-vaunted pace attack for this competition, Brave have struggled to make an impact with the ball. Missing Jofra Archer as he continues his comeback from injury, Mills and Jordan had taken one wicket between them in Brave’s first two games; and their only wicket in the Powerplay was George Garton’s dismissal of Alex Hales at the start of Trent Rockets’ low-pressure chase of 127.Related

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Brave started much better in their first outing at home, with Garton proving difficult for the two right-handed Phoenix openers to get away during an opening “tenner”. Colin de Grandhomme sneaked through a cheap set and Mills then finally got himself on the board for the campaign when Daniel Bell-Drummond slapped to point for 9 off 10. Phoenix were 27 for 1 after 25 and although Livingstone targeted de Grandhomme, hitting him for two sixes either side of being caught off a no-ball, the introduction of Jake Lintott seemed to put Brave on top.The left-arm wristspinner, a Blast wildcard pick after his success for Birmingham Bears, claimed a wicket with his first 100-ball delivery in Cardiff earlier in the week, but was then collared by Ben Duckett. On a bigger ground, he had greater protection to toss it up, and this time he struck twice in four balls – Finn Allen stumped coming down the pitch, Moeen Ali bowled while slog-sweeping – for impressive figures of 2 for 3 from his opening ten.Livingstone, we presume
That Livingstone would prove to be the headline act for Phoenix sooner or later was no surprise, coming just a couple of weeks after he had blitzed an England record 42-ball T20I hundred. But despite a few trademark towering blows into the stands, this was an innings that was more perspiration than inspiration.Liam Livingstone powers one through the offside•Getty Images

Livingstone was reprieved on 12, when replays showed de Grandhomme had overstepped after a big top edge had settled in the hands of mid-off, and although the next ball was dumped over the ropes, he only managed to find the boundary once from his next 23 balls. He moved into the 40s with a thick top edge over the keeper, crashed Mills into the crowd next ball and then brought up his half-century with another slice over short third man.Taking the pressure off during the middle of the innings was Hammond, moved down after the first two matches to fill an unfamiliar middle-order berth. From 6 off 9 he looked increasingly fluent and briefly overtook Livingstone to be 41 off 25 – but only ended up facing four of the last 15 deliveries. He said afterwards his strategy was to “get down the other end” and let his partner go to work, but Livingstone’s struggle for timing continued, even if his 68 off 44 looked like decisive.Vince’s lone hand
The women’s match earlier in the day had produced a cakewalk of a chase for the home side, Danni Wyatt’s fireworks seeing them to a target of 141 with 18 balls to spare; consequently, both Vince and Moeen Ali had been keen to bowl first at the toss. Vince got his way and made the early running in Brave’s chase. In fact, he did the early everything – during the time he was out in the middle, he scored 60 out of 82 and all nine of his side’s boundaries.He began in circumspect fashion against Milne’s extra pace in the Powerplay, but climbed into Helm, taking his first five for three fours and a six. Howell’s second ball was lofted for a regal six over deep extra cover, while four more boundaries came from the spin of Moeen and Livingstone. But with Conway dealing almost exclusively in singles, the pressure on Brave’s captain increased – and when he top-edged a sweep off Moeen to short fine leg, they were left needing 70 off 42.It looked beyond them until Jordan joined his captain in making a stand, as Brave’s men matched the women by pulling off the highest chase in their side of the tournament so far.

How to explain certain happenings – or non-happenings – at Nevil Road? Not to the aficionados of the game, the true cricket lovers who follow their county faithfully from the same seat each and every day. But to the man or woman or boy or girl with a casual interest. The type, say, who might think of having a look at the Hundred out of curiosity next year.On the first day here, we had a brief stoppage because the sun was reflecting off glass at an awkward angle towards the pitch. Effectively, we couldn’t play for nearly ten minutes because the light was in the wrong in the place.Now, on the second, a late start and three subsequent stoppages because of bad light. This despite the fact that at all times, five towering floodlights were beaming full strength directly into the arena. We are told about natural light and artificial light and of one taking over from the other. Not so much bad light, it seems, as the wrong light.To the layperson, this looks ridiculous and they put it pretty simply: How can you go off for bad light when the lights are on? It might even be the single most ridiculous thing in a sport that does have an unfortunate eye for the absurd. If this was a Monty Python sketch – and John Cleese for one is a great cricket lover – Graham Chapman would have marched on to to field calling an end to proceedings with the words: “Stop that! It’s silly.” Except we had stopped already.In front of the pavilion, Gloucestershire supporters chuntered as they stared out at the heavily illuminated but vacant field. Presumably their membership fees were going towards the cost of electricity maintaining the lights while players sat and waited in the dressing rooms. The meter must have been spinning like a one-arm bandit.All in all, this was not a day of great economic fortune for Gloucestershire. A (justified) delayed start and total of three ‘bad’ light stoppages cost 23 overs in total, and there was a second case of poor returns in the contribution of Shannon Gabriel, the West Indies overseas player signed for the last three games of their promotion drive.Gabriel bowled some good balls, and some quick ones. He may well take 6 for 20 at some point over the next fortnight, especially if rhythm coincides with the appearance of the tail-end. But his debut so far has been marked with waywardness and no-balling. Doubtless the light restrained Chris Dent from using his fastest bowler for more than ten overs; the sight of Gabriel unpeeling his sweater did tend to provoke the umpires into reaching for their meters.Figures of 16-0-94-0 tell an unhappy story of profligacy, especially alongside the meanness of David Payne, a good servant of the club and easily the best of their bowlers so far. Batting was not easy at any period and for chunks it became particularly difficult with the clouds low and Payne and Ryan Higgins, a left-right combination, swinging the ball from an accurate line. Overall, Gloucester may well think they should be better placed.Victory for Sussex in their most recent game, versus Middlesex, ended a run of three successive defeats stemming from first innings totals of 232 (against Durham), 106 (Northamptonshire) and 127 (Lancashire). That poor run explains why they have dropped to sixth place, but they have enviable depth to the batting and, for the second day in a row, enjoyed a good end to proceedings. This time, David Wiese and Will Beer saw off the early overs of the second new ball with an unbroken eighth-wicket stand of 46.Play had begun at 11.10am and Phil Salt added only ten to his overnight 53 before pushing at a good ball angled across by Payne, giving the first of three catches to James Bracey in the slips. Tom Haines and Luke Wells built slowly before Haines succumbed to the left-arm spin of Tom Smith, by which stage Sussex were more than three-quarters of the way to matching their opponents.But Gloucester strangled the batsmen immediately after lunch. Luke Wells (42) scythed his bat through the air in self-reproach after lunging forward to Payne and edging to Bracey, although he probably had to play at the ball. Delray Rawlins was the polar opposite of his patient captain and in attempting to hit his way out of trouble eventually skied to wicketkeeper Gareth Roderick.Since then, a succession of twenties have built Sussex an advantage. Wiese (40 not out) has been relatively restrained, lofting Smith for a six but otherwise respecting the bowling, while Ben Charlesworth, who recently left St Edward’s School in Oxford after A-levels, built on his reputation as a talented but thoughtful cricketer with a consistent fourth-stump line with his medium pace. Ben Brown and Chris Jordan duly erred.All in all, though, Gloucester’s head coach Richard Dawson was right to think that the bowling should have been better. And the concession of 38 runs in no-balls having scored only 200 in first innings borders on the criminal.

There’s been plenty of talk about when the world will get back to normal, but Lahore Qalandars look like they’re there anyway. A vintage capitulation from a side for whom qualification to the semis once looked a mere formality means their chances for progression hang in the balance. Multan Sultans swatted them aside by 80 runs, with Sohail Akhtar’s side bowled out inside 15.1 overs for 89, which – aside from the points going to the Sultans – has produced a devastating blow to the Qalandars net run rate that they could ill afford to absorb. Shahnawaz Dhani was the architect of the huge win, taking four wickets once again in the face of listless opposition from Qalandars.Having lost three on the bounce when failing to chase down targets, Qalandars’ decision to put Sultans in first was curious, but the bowlers kept them on a leash for much of the innings. Aside from a menacing 63-run partnership between Rilee Rossouw and Sohaib Maqsood – whose 40-ball 60 was redolent of his best days as a T20 power hitter – Sultans were never truly able to pull away. And once that partnership was broken, Shaheen Afridi and James Faulkner helped Qalandars run riot, ripping through the lower-middle order to leave Quetta hovering around 140. Only a destructive – in every sense of the word – final over from Haris Rauf, from which Sohail Tanvir plundered 24, helped Sultans set Qalandars 170 to win.Given their chasing struggles in this leg of the tournament, that was always going to be an uphill task. Ben Dunk was promoted, signalling a shift in approach. But the experiment failed before Dhani, sensational once again, got some extra bounce to prise out a struggling Fakhar Zaman. Blessing Muzarabani got in on the act as Mohammad Hafeez fell thanks to a loose shot. Imran Tahir joined the party too, and aside from one big over courtesy Faulkner, the chase was never really on. When he was dismissed, the fight left the Qalandars. At this rate, the Qalandars might be leaving Abu Dhabi soon enough.Dhani delight Shahnawaz Dhani’s special relationship with the PSL shows no signs of cooling, his dizzying figures of 3.1-1-5-4 the zenith of an already glittering tournament. The signs of a remarkable day presented themselves the very first time he bowled, nailing Fakhar Zaman with a bouncer off his first ball and putting Qalandars on the back foot straightaway. When he returned in the middle overs, he got rid of the last dregs of Qalandars’ hope, extra bounce putting paid to Faulkner’s enterprising little stay. All that remained was the snuffing of the tail, and in this sort of mood, he accomplished that with disdainful ease.Harif Rauf’s 20th overIt’s easy to forget what a seemingly impregnable position Lahore found themselves in 19 overs into the match. Sultans had hobbled along to 145, and Tanvir kept the strike off the final ball of the previous over, hoping to get a few big hits in. It began with a couple of streaky fours, before a hammer blow over square leg for six saw the momentum shift ominously away from the struggling Qalandars. Assisted by supremely ordinary bowling, Tanvir – who has struggled for runs this PSL – managed another ten off the last two, wrenching the momentum back to his side. While Lahore had conceded just 26 off the five overs prior, Sultans plundered 24 more in just one. Lahore would never quite recover.Where they standLahore Qalandars are joined by Multan Sultans on ten points and both teams have one match to play. Sultans have the best net run rate in the tournament and barring a historically catastrophic loss to Islamabad United, Sultans are assured of a playoff spot. Meanwhile, Qalandars’ fate rests in the hands of Quetta Gladiators. If the last place Gladiators can beat Karachi Kings, then Qalandars will take the final playoff berth. However, a win for the Kings and they’ll move to ten points but will be in the playoffs ahead of Qalandars due to a superior net run rate.

Durham record-breaker Chris Rushworth celebrated another milestone on the third day of the LV= Insurance County Championship match against Derbyshire at Derby. The 34-year-old, who last week became Durham’s leading first-class wicket-taker, claimed his 29th five-wicket haul, finishing with 6 for 49.Derbyshire captain Billy Godleman scored 41 before Wayne Madsen shared a stand of 99 in 28 overs with Matt Critchley who during his 49 became the 28th player for the county to score 4000 runs and take 150 wickets in all formats. England fast bowler Mark Wood took 2 for 84.The home side had to bring in Anuj Dal as a concussion replacement for wicketkeeper Harvey Hosein who was hit on the back of the helmet by Brydon Carse and he steered Derbyshire to 258 before Ben Aitchison struck twice to reduce Durham to 20 for 2.Rushworth’s day started with Godleman driving and cutting him for three fours in the opening over before he and Wood hit back. Rushworth swung one in to trap Brooke Guest lbw for 30 and Wood found lift and movement to have Leus du Plooy caught behind for a second-ball duck.When Godleman edged to second slip charging Rushworth, Derbyshire had lost three wickets in nine balls but they were revived, not for the first time this season, by Madsen and Critchley.Madsen cover drove fluently while Critchley counterattacked against Wood, pulling him for two sixes in an over to restore Derbyshire’s fortunes at lunch. The pair were one short of a fourth century stand of the campaign when Critchley clipped Rushworth to midwicket and then Hosein was forced to leave the field when he ducked into a Carse delivery.After a short break for rain, Carse took the wicket Durham wanted when he beat Madsen’s drive to pin him lbw and after tea was taken early because of bad light, Wood bowled Alex Hughes who was beaten for pace.Aitchison whipped Wood for six before he top-edged Carse and Fynn Hudson-Prentice became Rushworth’s fourth victim when he missed a big drive. Rushworth had Sam Conners caught at point and Dal lbw to complete his second six-wicket haul against Derbyshire this season, leaving Durham to negotiate 15 overs in which they lost Alex Lees and nightwatchman Ben Raine.