If football provided North East sport with a winter of discontent, Durham ensured it was a glorious summer for cricket. Chief Sports Writer Luke Edwards looks back on 2009

IT IS hard to believe given their omnipotence in the County Championship this year that to have predicted Durham would become the leading side in domestic cricket would have brought uncontrollable laughter just a handful of years ago.

After back-to-back titles, the second of which was won with supreme ease over the course of a magnificent unbeaten campaign, the talk now centres on a Durham dynasty at the Riverside as Geoff Cook’s side look to dominate county cricket for a generation.

The former whipping boys of English cricket, a club once patted on the back for effort but slapped down whenever they stepped out on to the pitch, are now the ones dishing out the beatings and it has been brilliant to watch. It was impossible to say it at the time, but Durham looked like County Champions in May rather than September.

They lost the odd session and occasionally came off worst at the end of a day’s play, but they never looked like losing a game.

With the old masters Michael Di Venuto and Dale Benkenstein showing the way with the bat – both scored more than 1,000 runs with Di Venuto enjoying his best ever season in county cricket at the age of 35 – Durham’s superb bowling attack did the rest with Stephen Harmison, Graham Onions, Mark Davies and Liam Plunkett complemented perfectly by new signing and player of the year Ian Blackwell.

No title success is ever a formality but it says everything about the quality of this Durham side that they came close and they will be the overwhelming favourites to retain their crown in 2010.