Di Venuto’s 50th century earns victory for leaders

Jul 4 2009 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

THERE have been bigger knocks in Michael Di Venuto’s career and more important ones but it was fitting the Australian should collect a half-century of centuries with a match-winning one for Durham.

As the dark clouds encroached on the Riverside yesterday morning, Di Venuto scored a brilliant 100 not out as Durham successfully chased the 179 runs they needed to beat Worcestershire with minutes to spare before the rain fell.

While wickets fell around him, Di Venuto was inspirational, making the most of a let off when Alexei Kervezee dropped him on the fine leg boundary on 49, to steer Durham to a fourth successive County Championship victory to strengthen their position at the top of the table.

It was a fascinating hour-and-a-half’s play as Durham, still needing 115 runs with nine wickets remaining, treated the game like a Twenty20 affair in a bid to beat the weather.

It was a slogathon at the end of a fascinating four-day tussle.

“We had to get on with it a little bit and play our shots,” said Di Venuto, who has scored 21681 first class runs at an average of 45.16. “It was my third century of the season and probably the most surprising one given how few runs we needed at the end.

“Ian Blackwell said to me at one stage, ‘if we handle this properly you can get a hundred here’, but I just wanted to get the runs and get off before the rain arrived so told him not to worry about it.

“The way things went, a couple of people got out and it fell into my hands which was nice for me. It was a very rewarding innings and an enjoyable one because we had to attack because of the weather which was heading our way.

“I wouldn’t say it was the most special innings of my career, but I believe it was my 50th first class hundred so that’s something special certainly.”

At 35, Di Venuto only plays for six months of the year having elected to take an Italian passport and retire from first class cricket with Tasmania.

It was a decision designed to prolong his career and if these are the twilight years it is remarkable to think a batsman so talented never managed to play a single Test match for Australia.

The opener’s international career ended after just nine one-day internationals – a reminder ahead of the Ashes of just how strong Australian cricket has been for the last decade – but he remains one of the most potent run scorers on the county circuit.

Had it not been for him, Durham may well have been forced to bat for a draw as Will Smith, Gordon Muchall, Dale Benkenstein and Ian Blackwell all fell yesterday morning. That can be put down to the fact they needed to score runs as quickly as possible, but it would have been interesting to see what would have happened had Di Venuto also been dismissed and Phil Mustard was asked to bat with the tail.

However, with four wins out of four in the Championship and a place in the Twenty20 quarter-final to look forward to later this month Durham are on a roll. Di Venuto said: “We’ve been playing some terrific cricket.

“Our Championship cricket has been excellent in the last three games in very different circumstances and it was good to be able to go out there this time and hit the winning runs for the team.

“Confidence is obviously high because we are winning games. We’ve possibly got two guys to come back into the side as well next week in Steve (Harmison) and Graham (Onions) so we’re looking strong.”