Cricket: Sterling show by Silverwood

Durham 172 Yorkshire 175 for 2 Yorkshire win by 8 wkts

DURHAM were already assured of a first appearance in the Benson and Hedges quarter-finals, which was just as well. Their attempt to spoil Yorkshire's 100 per cent record and claim a home tie was pretty lame in the circumstances as David Byas led his side to victory in a canter, Darren Lehmann hitting 65 off 63 balls.

Then again, Durham were a team of many limps. David Boon, their Australian captain, was ruled out with a broken toe, John Morris required a runner after tearing a calf muscle and Jon Lewis ultimately needed someone to do his leg work too after pulling up with a tweaked hamstring.

Lewis by then was most of the way to the 87-ball 67 that won him the Gold Award and at least gave Durham's innings some substance, not that a total of 172 represented much of a challenge to a Yorkshire side bristling with early-season form.

Boon, whose competitive presence is important to Durham's self-esteem, will be missing for at least three weeks, an absence that will be keenly regretted by Melvyn Betts, who bowled the ball that did the damage in the nets on Friday. Simon Brown, the left-arm seamer, was also missing, with a knee injury, which may have had a bearing on the result given that there was cloud cover to help the ball swing on a warm day.

The conditions were effectively exploited by Yorkshire's formidable attack, in which Darren Gough, Paul Hutchison and Chris Silverwood claimed three wickets each. Gough, not for the first time this season, was outshone by his England colleague, Silverwood.

Under Graham Gooch's selectorial gaze, the rangy 23-year-old demonstrated his eagerness to claim a place in the Texaco Trophy line-up by breaking a 68-run fourth-wicket partnership between Lewis and Nick Speak, defeating Martin Speight with an inswinger and knocking over Neil Killeen to raise his wicket-tally in all forms of cricket to 21 for the season.

Yorkshire raced to 58 in 10 overs for the loss of Michael Vaughan and had reached 75 by the time Alex McGrath fell in the 15th. Then Byas (52) and Lehmann compiled an unbroken partnership of 100 to complete the job with 15.5 overs to spare.