IT would be premature to talk about an early season crisis at Durham, although there are clearly reasons to be concerned following this abject Friends Provident Trophy defeat to Sussex Sharks.

This always promised to be a difficult season for Durham, having won this competition in 2007 and the County Championship last year and, as strong as their squad looks on paper, it is failing to function as it should. Durham have won just one competitive game out of five so far this season, a fortunate one-run victory over Surrey Brown Caps on Sunday which relied heavily on a superb final over from spinner Ian Blackwell after the visitors had looked certain to claim the win.

Although Geoff Cook’s side have enjoyed the better of two rain-affected draws with Yorkshire and Somerset in the County Championship, a much-vaunted bowling attack has still failed to take 10 wickets in a second innings despite having plenty of time to do so on both occasions.

As for the Friends Provident Trophy, the team’s interest in this year’s competition is only maintained because of that spirited fightback against Surrey.

Durham dug themselves out of trouble on that occasion as Blackwell took two wickets in the final over, but they never looked like doing the same against Sussex yesterday following a poor performance with the bat and an ineffectual one with the ball.

Durham’s innings never got going. Sussex took regular wickets to disrupt them when any sort of momentum was building, while some tight bowling on a slow wicket cramped the home team’s batsmen enough to force errors.