IN the quest for more guaranteed one-day cricket, knockout matches have become a rarity at county level. Durham should be glad, because their last win in one came three years ago.

Always the bridesmaids, Somerset – runners-up in all three competitions last year and in this season’s Twenty20 Cup – have been saddled with the tag of chokers. While they rose to the challenge, Durham blew up spectacularly. Again.

They have not been beaten in their last three knockout games, they have been hammered, on every occasion failing to meet standards set over a season.

It was Durham’s third big game of an exhausting week in the south. But they could actually have lost the first and still reached the last four, and with the County Championship odds against them in Sussex it was a different type of pressure.

After all that, Dale Benkenstein blamed fatigue for the failures, but the pattern is worrying. As against Hampshire in the Twenty20 Cup quarter-final, a poor start with bat and ball – compounded by consistently poor fielding – saw them lose their rain-affected CB40 semi-final at Somerset by 39 runs.

From five overs into the hosts’ innings, the only question was whether the rain would come soon enough to save Durham. Even after Mitchell Claydon started with a maiden, Somerset raced to 41-0 off the first five overs. The Duckworth Lewis par score was 14-0.

Only Callum Thorp exercised any control. His second over cost 13 but Chris Jones nearly chopped on and Arul Suppiah was made to sweat on a third umpire stumping decision. He was fortunate to get Jones later, a forward defensive spinning onto his stumps.

Missing regular openers Marcus Trescothick and Craig Kieswetter, Suppiah and Durham University first-year Jones seemed determined to prove a point, and did so magnificently from the moment they pulled fours off Graham Onions’ opening over. Suppiah’s 57 from 34 balls was imperious, no shot better than a backfoot drive on the up.

Claydon, Thorp, Paul Collingwood and Scott Borthwick conceded four between them in their opening overs, but Somerset were comfortable enough to take a sighter. With 17 overs gone, Benkenstein had tried six bowlers.

Steady rain was falling in the 20th over – the last that needed to be bowled for a Duckworth Lewis result. When its final ball met James Hildreth’s forward defensive, the crowd applauded enthusiastically. Somerset were 42 above par.

Mustard cleverly backed off to collect what looked like a top-edged sweep from Hildreth but the batsman was adamant the ball rolled up his pad. When the video screen showed a replay as he finally stomped off, he turned back for a “told you so” glare at the umpires. The smile was soon back on his face, though, as five overs later Jeff Evans and Peter Hartley admitted defeated in their losing battle with the rain, with Somerset well ahead of the game at 165-3. Durham did well to post 219 after a calamitous start. They were 44-4 in the 11th over after Collingwood – struggling even to nurdle the singles that come so naturally to him in one-day cricket – chipped to Murali Kartik. It would be the oversea player’s only positive contribution.

Somerset were electric in the field early on, Lewis Gregory diving to cut out a certain four and wicketkeeper Jos Buttler throwing down the stumps at the non-striker’s end, albeit with Mustard safe. Mark Stoneman was run out going for an idiotic single to mid-off and when Mustard rightly declined a fourth-over single, the crowd roared at his sheepishness. When Collingwood could only hammer a free hit straight to mid-on for a dot, the pressure seemed to have got to Durham. But Somerset’s fielding got as ragged as Durham’s would be on a rough outfield. Mustard might have been run out on 21 and 22, though neither chance was easy.

Kartik, diving across Buttler, ought to have held Benkenstein, on nought from three balls.

Benkenstein revels in these situations. He hit a six and six fours in 82 from 76 balls, seeing Durham through to a batting powerplay taken at the last possible moment. Benkenstein and Ian Blackwell broke the shackles, finding the boundary in six consecutive overs worth 45 after only three in the first 14. Blackwell was also dropped, by George Dockrell on one, although it was a very difficult caught-and-bowled chance all the more painful for where it finished. It was a good contest between the spinners, Dockrell twice beating Blackwell’s bat in the next over, but pulled for six.

When the left-hander pulled down the throat of midwicket Craig Meschede, Somerset’s fans loudly acknowledged the value of their former player’s scalp.The partnership with Borthwick was very different, the young tyro seemingly determined to run two for everything. It would eventually be his 37-year-old partner’s undoing, after escaping on 72.

Dropped on 17 by Suppiah, who followed it with an horrendous misfield, Borthwick made comfortably his best List A score in only his third such innings for Durham this season. The rest quickly followed Benkenstein, but it looked like he had salvaged a competitive score – until Somerset batted.