Call him Custer

It's always good to win the toss on a hot summer morning: then you can bat first and let the other side tire themselves out in the field.

This morning I got to the ground just as AJ Harris was going off with a groin strain. Worse still, Durham's openers were rattling along: Stephen Fleming had won the toss and put them in to bat.

Maher shared partnerships of 155 with Lewis and 68 with Scott, but Mark Ealham struck back with four wickets in six balls to give Notts some hope.

Some hope...

When Graeme Swann walked off, having been stumped...

Notts were 95 for 8

with the tail-enders needing to score at eight runs an over for 23 overs.

Lost causes don't get much loster than that in one-day cricket -

St Jude himself would have had to walk away from it shaking his head.

A defeat by 100 to 150 runs was a foregone conclusion.

And the sight of AJ Harris coming in to bat with Samit Patel as his runner wouldn't inspire confidence at the best of times. Chris Read (24 not out) met them and had a chat. My guess was that the conversation would include the phrase "we're stuffed" (or something similar).

About an hour later, as Chris Read brought up the 200 and completed his second one-day century - having gone from 50 to 100 in just 31 balls - it looked like the impossible might actually be happening. For Harris and Read, read Houdini and Custer.

Alas, Read's scalp was taken in the third from last over. He had hit ten fours and four sixes in the 111 balls it took him to score 135 - leaving everyone in the crowd convinced about his ability with the bat, and wondering what sort of fuckwits the England selectors must be for continually rejecting him.

Durham 280-6 (50 overs; Maher 109, Lewis 73, Scott 41, Ealham 4-53) beat Notts

252 all out (48.2 overs; Read 135 AJ Harris 34, Gibson 4-63) by 28 runs.