Graham Thorpe

Graham Thorpe

Durham set the standard

Fri Sep 18 10:49AM

Durham's achievement in winning back-to-back Championship titles is tremendous and has been an incredible journey for the county.

Geoff Cook's side have an abundance of home-grown talent with a few strong oversees players to complement the group.

It has been an amazing transformation for the county if you look at how they started, and everyone in the game is pleased to see them have such success.

They key for them has always been their ability to bowl sides out and that gives them a huge advantage - it is the bowlers who are largely responsible for the side's prowess.

Look at any team that has ever been successful; you need a bowling attack to take 20 wickets, and that is why they have had their success.

Durham's development has been superb and they have also recruited superbly with the players they have brought in to add to the group.

In addition to the well-known names of Steve Harmison, Liam Plunkett and Graham Onions, Callum Thorp is a fine young bowler, along with Mitchell Claydon (pictured) from Australia in what is a very strong unit.

Ian Blackwell has proved to be a great signing and is a very experienced county player having dropped out of the international frame.

They have a very solid batting line up to support the bowlers, with Michael Di Venuto, Dale Benkenstein and Shivnarine Chanderpaul well led by Will Smith.

Director of cricket Cook deserves a lot of credit for the way that he has slowly and steadily built his squad with wise recruitment and intelligent promotion of good young players.

Durham's success is a benchmark for the other counties and undoubtedly they will now be hunted next season, which is a healthy situation for the county game.

  • Comments1 - 6 of 6

  1. That's all pretty obvious really.
    Funny how a team with good bowlers and good batsmen win the championship!

    The big question is how do we transfer this to the England team.

    monkeyharri5From monkeyharri5 on Fri Sep 18 11:53AM

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  2. Well done to Durham - a great achievement and well deserved.

    wicketmaidenFrom wicketmaiden on Fri Sep 18 07:09PM

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  3. Good article Thorpy, all we need is for Yahoo to sort out the fuffing clowns who but sh it on the forum regarding games consoles and girls etc etc.. Maybe we should all discontinue our link ups with Yahoo!!!!!!!! At least yahoo, vet the fuffing sh it that comes on or I will start the ball rolling.

    ian182mackFrom ian182mack on Fri Sep 18 07:29PM

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  4. and I'll join you, ian182mack

    bretorneFrom bretorne on Fri Sep 18 08:07PM

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  5. and so will I...

    peterjheadFrom peterjhead on Fri Sep 18 10:01PM

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  6. In congratulating Durham,I can only lament how the county game has suffered from all the meaningless matches and bogus "Test match" calls. Too much cricket .too much Tv,too much money around, and not enough local interest. They're killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

    kel.palmerFrom kel.palmer on Mon Sep 21 11:28AM

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