Yorkshire CCC suffer final day heartbreak against Durham as County Championship winless run continues

All defeats hurt.

But this was a game that Yorkshire should have won.

When Matty Fisher took three wickets in three overs on the third evening, closely followed by two in two balls for Jordan Thompson, Durham were 173-8 in pursuit of 246 to win.

At that point, Yorkshire’s tails were up and Durham needed a further 73 for victory.

A first County Championship triumph for 13 months seemed Yorkshire’s for the taking.

But Ben Raine and Matthew Potts, the ninth-wicket pair, guided their side to 213-8 at stumps - surviving the extra half-hour and all that Yorkshire could throw at them - before the hosts completed the job inside 50 minutes on a sunny day four, nervelessly withstanding the loss of Potts with just two runs wanted to win by one wicket.

Instead of a first victory of the season at the fifth attempt, Yorkshire suffered a second defeat in five and an eighth defeat in 13 Championship matches dating back to last summer.

They have now gone 17 Championship games without a victory since April last year, their second-worst run since the Championship was officially constituted in 1890, the worst being a 20-match winless sequence in 2008-09.

This game was perfectly balanced at the start of day four.

Yorkshire needed two wickets; Durham required a further 33 runs, and 254 spectators turned out to witness the last rites.

To judge by the reception that the Yorkshire players received when they took to the field, with Lumley Castle resplendent in the distance, a fair few of those were of White Rose persuasion.

“Come on, Yorkshire” came the cries from below the media centre at the Finchale End; even a hard-bitten neutral might have felt a tingle down the spine.

With 10 overs to go until the second new ball, then tantalisingly out of the visitors’ reach, Shan Masood entrusted bowling duties first up to George Hill and Matty Fisher.

Singles off the first two balls from Hill settled both batsmen’s nerves and heartened the home crowd, who cheered them as if both had been struck to the boundary.

Cries of “Come on, Durham” were now audible in the stands. Every ball, every field change, felt like an event.

There was a slightly anxious moment for the home crowd when Raine drove a delivery from Fisher not a million miles away from the bowler in his follow-through, at which point the total had advanced to 224-8, Raine and Potts having brought up their 50 partnership from 127 balls.

Hill was withdrawn after two overs for five runs from the Finchale End and replaced by Jordan Thompson, whose opening over was a painful one for him personally and for Yorkshire collectively.

First, Potts timed him beautifully down the ground for the day’s first boundary, with Thompson left writhing in agony after diving to his right in an effort to stop the ball.

It looked as though Thompson’s day was done – perhaps even his season – as the physio came out to treat the stricken player, who appeared to be in considerable discomfort, but initial fears that he might have dislocated his shoulder were followed by the slightly better news that he had merely dislocated a finger.

After a lengthy stoppage Thompson picked himself up and dusted himself down, but he was hit for another boundary later in the over, Raine this time clipping him away nicely off his pads.

Masood kept faith with Fisher throughout from the Lumley End, but the captain rotated again when Thompson was withdrawn and replaced by Dom Bess.

The spinner sent down one over before he, too, was replaced by Hill, Yorkshire taking the second new ball as soon as it became available.

At that stage, Durham were 244-8, and after Potts played the first delivery safely down the pitch, Hill trapped him lbw with the second to send the batsman on his way for 25, ending the ninth-wicket partnership at 71.

With the two runs still needed, Brydon Carse, the pace bowler who had been unable to take to the field on day three due to a side strain, strode out to the middle with his captain, Scott Borthwick, acting as his runner.

Could Yorkshire snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and somehow pull it off?

Hill’s first delivery to Carse climbed off the deck and rapped him on the glove.

The second was wide of the off stump and allowed to go through. Carse left again to the third delivery before squirting the fourth away through third man, Raine and Borthwick gleefully completing the two runs required.

Durham had won by one wicket to break Yorkshire’s hearts, the seventh defeat by that narrow margin that Yorkshire have suffered in first-class cricket, the most recent having been against Essex at Headingley only last year.