Smith’s sights on finals day

Jun 26 2009 by Nick Purewal, The Journal

CAPTAIN confident Will Smith believes Durham can claw their way to Twenty20 finals day without their England strike force.

England refused to allow Graham Onions to play in this week’s short-format action ahead of next week’s Ashes warm-up games, while Durham chose to rest Steve Harmison.

The two pace fiends have been unstoppable in Championship action, so it would seem natural their captain would want to call on them in a vital week where times have been tough.

Having dispatched Derbyshire and Yorkshire already, Durham still need to see off both Lancashire tonight and Leicestershire on Sunday to rescue their Twenty20 challenge and secure a quarter-final berth.

But despite the loss of his two main strike assets, unfazed Smith said it makes sense to keep Harmison fresh for the four-day format, and he believes both players deserve a fair crack of the whip next week.

Pleased to see fringe bowlers come in and stake a regular-place claim, Smith expects the likes of Ben Harmison, Neil Killeen and Mitchell Claydon to continue their good work.

Confident his side can force their way into the last eight without the two men everyone wants to know about nationally, Smith said there was never any thought of bringing Steve Harmison into the equation.

“I don’t think there’s any thought of that,” said Smith, “Graham and Steve are resting up for their challenges with England over the next week or two.

“We were surprised that Yorkshire had Tim Bresnan and Rashid on Wednesday. We were unable to have Graham Onions. We’re doing well anyway, so we don’t really want to change it.

“We can prosper without our big names, definitely. It is the nature of Twenty20 cricket that the margins are so much smaller between people so sometimes the big guns are best kept for different forms of cricket like the four day stuff.