NOT for the first time this season, Durham go into an important game worrying about the fitness of Michael Di Venuto.

The Australian opener was struck on the elbow by Wayne Parnell on the second day of the County Championship game at Sussex.

It forced him to retire hurt on two and he did not return to the field.

Di Venuto suffered soft tissue damage and the bruising and swelling initially confined to his left elbow has spread down the forearm.

It makes the 37-year-old a major doubt for tomorrow’s CB40 semi-final at Somerset.

He has had bad luck with injury this season, missing Durham’s Twenty20 Cup quarter-final defeat at Hampshire to a damaged left index finger which left him unable to hold a bat properly.

He has still not fully recovered from that blow, sustained in the first week of August, and Durham have been selective with his limited-overs appearances since, only playing him in Monday’s win at The Oval which set up the Taunton clash.

Earlier in the season it would not have been an issue.

Having played all his international cricket with a white ball, Di Venuto fell out of favour at Chester-le-Street in the shorter formats of the game.

However, a brilliant 70 at the Rose Bowl in mid-July – a game he only played for match-fitness after the Twenty20 hiatus – followed by another half-century at home to Warwickshire reminded the brains’ trust of his talents.

Gordon Muchall is standing by to replace Di Venuto and has more than 400 runs in this season’s competition, at an average of 81.

His campaign has, though, followed a depressingly characteristic path, brilliant in April and May, poor thereafter.

Team-mate Dale Benkenstein said: “Muchy does everything at such a high speed he probably hit a wall.

“He will not like to admit it, but I think he needed a bit of a rest.”

Somerset also have injury problems with captain and star batsman Marcus Trescothick ruled out by ankle ligament damage.

DURHAM (from): Mustard (wk), Di Venuto, Stoneman, Muchall, Collingwood, Benkenstein (c), Blackwell, Breese, Borthwick, Thorp, Claydon, Onions, Smith, Rushworth, Wood.