da dobrowin： Not the greatest of seasons this one for Durham opening batsman Jon Lewis
Staff and agencies28-Jul-2000Not the greatest of seasons this one for Durham opening batsman Jon Lewis.Or at least that seemed the case until today, when his sparkling centuryguided Durham out of early trouble and into a position of respectability onday one of the County Championship clash with Somerset at Chester-le-Street.On an afternoon ravaged by rain, Lewis (113*) registered his first centuryin just over twelve months to guide his team to the mark of 215/5 after ithad won the toss. His only two half-centuries this season had both comeagainst Yorkshire, and at no stage this summer had he previously compiledanything exceeding 66. Notwithstanding such a run of outs, though, he wassolid off both the front and back foot today, and offered only onesemblance of a chance – that coming on 81 as he edged a Paul Jarvisdelivery between first and second slips.For Somerset, the home team’s early woes had been inspired by some finebowling from Graham Rose (2/28). It had been the right arm paceman indeedwho had lured Michael Gough (9) to edge a comfortable catch to second slipwith the total at 17 and then attracted an inside edge on to the stumpsfrom Simon Katich (0) with the very next ball.Following the intervention of rain (over a period in mid-afternoonsufficiently lengthy to wash away thirty-one overs of action), and in thewake of a cracking burst which had seen sixty-one runs smoked from eightwayward overs from Jarvis (1/66) and Jamie Grove (1/39), Rose then put histeammates’ horror spell into even greater perspective. He beat the bats ofboth Paul Collingwood (34) and Nick Speak (7) repeatedly before KeithParsons (1/21) and then Jarvis respectively claimed those wickets to reviveSomerset’s fortunes.There followed another period of Lewis-led consolidation for Durham beforeMuazam Ali, who had reached the giddy heights of 18 after totalling sevenruns from four previous first-class innings, irrationally launched a wildhook straight to Jarvis (playing in his first Championship match of theseason) at long leg in the final over of the day.