Bears Blast Best: Durham

Brian Halford looks back at our best Blast batting and bowling performances against Durham in the history of the tournament.

Best Innings – 97*

Varun Chopra (Edgbaston, 2016)

The Bears won the toss, put Durham into bat and then bowled and fielded tidily to restrict them to 154 or nine, Chris Woakes taking three for 25 and Rikki Clarke two for 25.

The target looked gettable, but no formality.

Opening batsman Varun Chopra turned it into a formality.

The elegant Chopra dominated an opening stand of 94 in ten overs with Ian Bell and then saw his side all the way to victory in an unbroken partnership of 61 in 46 balls with Will Porterfield.

His polished unbeaten 97 came from just 58 balls, with eight fours and five sixes, and the only disappointment of a memorable night at Edgbaston arrived when the target was reached with 14 balls to spare and 'Chops' was still three short of his ton.

Best Bowling – 3/19

Imran Tahir (Riverside, 2010)

Put in, Durham soon descended into trouble as Boyd Rankin, Neil Carter and Keith Barker got among their top order and reduced them to 23 for four. They were still in a pickle at 51 for four in the 12th over, when spinner Imran Tahir came in to bowl to Gordon Muchall.

Three balls later, it was 51 for seven and the magical Immy was lighting up the Riverside with one of his famous jigs of delights to celebrate a hat-trick.

Muchall missed an attempted big hit and was bowled, then Will Smith and Ben Harmison sent up catches to Ant Botha and Rikki Clarke respectively. The insatiable wicket-hunter that was Imran Tahir had three on the trot.

He finished with 3-0-19-3 which, alongside Carter's 4-0-18-2 and Rankin's 4-0-17-1, restricted Durham to 117 for eight. Skipper Jim Troughton (24 from 40 balls) and Clarke (29 not out from 21) then organised the chase perfectly and the Bears won with two overs and five wickets to spare.