Paul Horton gives County Championship leaders Lancashire a boost at Chester-le-Street

The clash of the top two promised to test Lancashire’s resolve against a team who have been obliged to eke out victories on flat pitches.

Three of the leaders’ five wins have come at Liverpool and, despite their 590 at Hove, the average total of the side batting first in their previous six matches has been 299, compared with 474 for Durham. Nor have the pitches on which Durham have played deteriorated.

In six of their seven games the final innings has produced more than 300 runs, the exception being their 102 for two to beat Warwickshire at home.

There was a tinge of green in Sunday’s strip, so Durham put Lancashire in and for 30 minutes they threatened to wreak havoc.

Then the sun came out, the batsmen dug in and the seamers erred. Graham Onions and Callum Thorp took a wicket each in reducing Lancashire to nine for two, but dropped too short too often thereafter.

Watched by England selector James Whitaker, Onions did not enhance his chances of being called up for the second Test in place of James Anderson. Onions came under fire from Glen Chapple when the new ball was taken on 241 for seven.

Nine overs later it was 310 for seven, but Mitch Claydon had Chapple caught at third man for 46 and the last three wickets went down for one run.

Paul Horton’s 94 revived Lancashire, but when he was fourth out with the total on 158 the benefits of diligent application began to be dissipated, with Gareth Cross and Tom Smith both guilty of over-ambition against the spinners.

Although he gave no clear chance, Horton led something of a charmed life.

An edge on one brushed Gordon Muchall’s fingertips at first slip, a leading edge on 19 just evaded cover and a skied hook on 65 fell into space.

He showed good judgement of what to leave, however, and remained alert to the chance to dispatch poor balls, hitting 15 fours.

Three came in one over from Ben Stokes – a pull, a square drive and an on-drive – to take Horton into the 90s, only for Stokes to nip one back to hit the off stump and end a stand of 72 with Steve Croft.

Both batsmen had set out to leave whatever they didn’t need to play at in the post-lunch spell from Onions and Thorp. Durham’s hopes of reuniting Onions and Steve Harmison for the first time since August, 2009 were dashed by the back injury which afflicted Harmison at Edgbaston.

It seemed unlikely to matter, however, when Stephen Moore fell to the 12th ball of the day, guiding a head-high catch to third slip, then Keith Brown shaped to drive Onions and edged to Michael Di Venuto at second slip.

The Tasmanian also held a simple catch to end Mark Chilton’s 23-over vigil for 12 and a brilliant one to get rid of Croft and give Ian Blackwell the first of his three wickets.

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Worcestershire prosper thanks to excellence of Alan Richardson and Damien Wright

Worcestershire chairman Martyn Price has excused the county’s chief executive David Leatherdale and director of cricket Steve Rhodes of any wrongdoing over the Adrian Shankar affair.

West Mercia Police are investigating whether batsman Shankar may have provided false information to obtain a two year contract with Worcestershire, who abruptly terminated the deal last week.

Price has backed his senior management team and asked the England and Wales Cricket Board to review its registration procedures.

“David and Steve have my full backing, they have done nothing wrong and have worked hard to sort this mess out.” Price said. “If there is any blame attached the ECB have to take a bit of it."

At least Worcestershire’s on-field performances diverted some of the attention from ‘Shankargate’ by making the champions struggle on a seamer-friendly pitch.

Worcestershire have lost all six matches since they returned to the top flight but they were spirited and competitive thanks to the excellence of Alan Richardson and Damien Wright.

The new ball pair shared six wickets between them and beat the bat on numerous occasions.

Riki Wessels, controversially registered after he obtained an obscure entrepreneur visa, the terms of which require him to be contracted through a company, marked his Nottinghamshire championship debut with an aggressive 67.

The champions scrambled their first batting point in three matches thanks to lower order resistance from Chris Read, Paul Franks and Andre Adams.

The most fluent innings of the day was played by Vikram Solanki who played beautifully for his 53-ball 52 before he went LBW to Adams.

Solanki’s stand of 65 with Matt Pardoe for Worcestershire’s second wicket was the only half century partnership of the day.

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Denly delivers as Kent dominate

Joe Denly scored his first LV= County Championship hundred since 2009 as Kent’s batsmen enjoyed a prolific opening day in the bottom-of-the-table Division Two clash against Leicestershire at Tunbridge Wells.

Kent reached stumps on 376 for three, with Denly making 143 and receiving admirable support from Rob Key and Sam Northeast, who each fell narrowly short of three figures.

Key was dismissed for 91, also a season’s best for him, after putting on 198 for the first wicket with Denly, and Northeast scored 99 before being dismissed by what became the last ball of the day.

Northeast, trying to get to three figures before the close, attempted to flick Andrew McDonald wide of mid-on and was lbw to the fifth delivery of the 96th over.

Kent, anchored to the foot of Division Two after losing four of their first six championship games, have targeted this match against second-from-bottom Leicestershire to try to reverse their fortunes after an injury-ravaged opening seven weeks of the season.

Importantly, Key won the toss and first use of an excellent pitch and, on a blustery day, set about a Leicestershire attack missing England Lions fast bowler Nathan Buck, who has a stress fracture of the foot.

Kent were 134 without loss at the end of the morning session and it was almost an hour after lunch before the opening pair were split when Key drilled a return catch to seamer McDonald.

The Kent captain had faced 146 balls, hitting nine fours and a six over long-on off slow left-armer Claude Henderson.

Denly was then joined in an equally productive second-wicket partnership of 140 by Northeast, which saw the two young Kent-born batsmen keep up the pressure on the visitors.

There were 19 fours in Denly’s hundred, made from 147 balls, while Northeast found the boundary 10 times en route to his half-century, which came off 80 deliveries.

Denly has made three centuries and three ducks in his last six first-class innings at Tunbridge Wells and this was his 11th first-class hundred.

Last season he registered only 610 runs in championship cricket, at an average of 21, and this summer he had previously scored just 82 from eight innings and had also suffered a broken finger.

Northeast, who made 112 in the first match of the season at Essex, has also largely struggled for runs, but this fluent innings underlined his rich promise.

It was just a shame for him that he played across the line in the final over of the day – in search of what would have been a third championship hundred – instead of waiting to reach the landmark at the start of the second day.

Northeast’s 99 came from 157 balls, with 15 fours, and Denly faced 247 balls in all and hit 22 fours.

Denly and Key’s partnership was the first century stand for any Kent wicket this season, and was full of superlative shots.

A fast outfield meant that Denly, Key and Northeast gained full value for their strokeplay, and their fine batting has already given Kent a big advantage in this game.

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Wells and Goodwin flay Yorkshire

Luke Wells and Murray Goodwin each compiled unbeaten centuries as Yorkshire’s decision to put Sussex in on the first day of their LV= County Championship Division One tussle at the PROBIZ County Ground badly backfired.

Wells enhanced his reputation as one of the best young batsmen in the country by batting through the day to reach 143 not out - his third hundred in only his eighth championship game - while Goodwin had 108 to his name at stumps as Sussex closed on 295 for two.

Yorkshire skipper Andrew Gale probably felt a pitch with an even covering of grass would assist his seam attack and Ajmal Shahzad, who is one of the contenders to replace James Anderson in England’s squad should the Lancashire paceman be ruled out of the Lord’s Test, did take the scalp of the in-form Chris Nash in the ninth over with one which nipped back.

Wells was only opening because Nash’s regular partner Ed Joyce is playing for Ireland.

Joyce is due back in time for the third day and his nominated substitute, Joe Gatting, struggled to take his chance.

Gatting failed to score off 40 of the 44 balls he faced before he drove loosely at Steven Patterson and was well caught by the diving Joe Sayers at cover, although that was as good as it got for Yorkshire.

Wells, briefly becalmed before lunch, brought up his fifty with a cover-driven boundary off Patterson and during the afternoon session he and Goodwin made serene progress.

Wells had one alarm on 79 when he was knocked off his feet by Ryan Sidebottom’s yorker but umpire Richard Kettleborough - recently promoted to the ICC’s elite panel - adjudged the ball was sliding down the leg side.

The 20-year-old left-hander reached his century off 198 balls with successive fours when leg-spinner Adil Rashid obligingly dropped short. In total he faced 286 deliveries and found the boundary on 23 occasions.

Goodwin lost little in comparison to his partner although he also had one moment of good fortune, on 49, when he edged between the two slips off Patterson.

Otherwise Sussex’s vice-captain looked in total control, taking every opportunity to play his favoured back-foot shots whenever the bowlers dropped short.

He reached his 46th hundred for the county, in 217 balls, with his 13th four in the final over of the day and so far the third-wicket pair have added 217 in 71 overs.

Sussex are giving championship debutants to two South Africans. Left-armer Wayne Parnell only arrived at 6.30am on an overnight flight from Johannesburg to replace Pakistan’s Rana Naved-ul-Hasan as overseas player, while all-rounder Kirk Wernars, who qualifies because of his Dutch passport, was also included.

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