Durham v Yorkshire: Hard for Yorkshire to swallow as Mustard enjoys multiple escapes

Such was Yorkshire’s fate at Chester-le-Street, where Durham’s Phil Mustard was bizarrely reprieved against Adil Rashid.

Tim Robinson, the former Nottinghamshire and England batsman, raised his finger to send ‘Colonel Mustard’ on his way only to decide the batsman had, in fact, gloved an attempted reverse-sweep.

Yorkshire were naturally aggrieved at the U-turn and it is a fair bet that if a murder was perpetrated in Chester-le-Street last night, it was one of their number with the lead piping in the umpires’ room.

The incident called to mind the famous occasion WG Grace stood his ground after being adjudged lbw. “They’ve come to see me bat, not you umpire,” he told the official, who decided ‘The Doctor’ had a point and reversed the decision.

As it turned out, Mustard’s pardon was not particularly costly.

He added only 17 more runs before Rashid got him to top-edge another reverse-sweep into the leg-slip region following a fine innings of 70 from 67 balls.

More expensive from Yorkshire’s perspective were the three dropped catches off Mustard that allowed him to hurry the game away during the afternoon session.

Mustard and Paul Collingwood added 113 for the sixth-wicket in 22 overs as Yorkshire conceded a whopping 170 runs during the afternoon at five an over.

Durham had been 141-5 in reply to Yorkshire’s first innings 185 when Mustard walked out to bat 40 minutes after lunch to join the former England one-day captain. The game could have gone either way and duly went Durham’s as Yorkshire floundered beneath overcast skies. But it could – and should – have been different.

After Mustard took guard on a pitch offering help to the pace men, he pushed forward unconvincingly at his first delivery from Steve Patterson.

The ball flew to Rich Pyrah at second slip, who grassed the sort of chance low to his right he would normally snaffle in his sleep.

In the next over, bowled by Ryan Sidebottom, Pyrah again dropped Mustard at second slip, a tougher opportunity low to his left, but one Pyrah would again have expected to take. To compound Pyrah’s misery and the bowler’s frustration, the ball trickled away to the third-man boundary at the Lumley Castle end.

As Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale pondered those misses, he took his own eye off the ball when he dropped Mustard on 32 at mid-off off Patterson.

It could only be subscribed to a lapse in concentration – the sort of “mind on other things moment” that a captain knows only too well.

Mustard took advantage as he reached fifty from 48 deliveries, in the process striking 11 fours on a day when Durham scored 61 boundaries (58 fours and three sixes).

Collingwood contributed 12 fours during an innings of 108 that underpinned a final total of 408-8 declared, Yorkshire replying with 13-0 to go into the final day trailing by 210.

It was Collingwood’s first Championship hundred since September 2005, 11 days before he helped Michael Vaughan’s England regain the Ashes.

After rain washed out the first day and severely disrupted the second, Yorkshire began the third morning on 170-9.

The last pair of Patterson and Ajmal Shahzad stayed 25 minutes before Patterson was caught behind off Steve Harmison, whose figures of 3-27 from 12.1 overs flattered him a touch.

The tone for a poor fielding display was set in the second over of Durham’s reply.

Rashid dropped danger man Michael Di Venuto at third slip off Shahzad only to make amends three balls later when he caught Di Venuto off the same bowler.

Shahzad conceded 36 from his first five overs as Will Smith and Gordon Muchall raised the total to 54. Smith then edged Patterson to second slip before Yorkshire struck a double blow just before lunch.

Muchall edged Sidebottom to first slip following a fluent 55, Dale Benkenstein falling for five when Patterson had him caught behind.

Ian Blackwell smote 28 after the interval at better than a run-a-ball only to throw his wicket away when he swung wildly at Patterson and was caught high at first slip by Adam Lyth.

On a day when Yorkshire dropped six catches (a diving Pyrah later put down Scott Borthwick on 57 at first slip off Anthony McGrath to complete the sextet), Lyth accepted four opportunities and could hold his head high.

One of his slip catches got rid of Collingwood, Durham losing one more wicket before the declaration when Callum Thorp was caught in the deep trying to loft Rashid for a straight six.

Lyth was himself dropped on four in the closing moments, Mustard diving at full stretch to his left off Thorp.