Durham hope for Boland bounce after Hampshire wash-out

Boland has been training at Chester-le-Street over the weekend – he had his Durham headshots taken on Monday – but did not arrive in time to be considered for selection in the opening round of games. He is now due to be available across formats until the end of July, and should make his debut on Friday against Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

“He makes it another hard decision,” Ryan Campbell, Durham’s head coach, said. “We made some tough decisions ahead of this game: you would have seen Michael Jones and Bas de Leede miss out, which was a tough decision to come to. And now somebody else is going to miss out – if he’s ready to play.”

Durham will also welcome the England Test captain back into their squad at some stage in the coming weeks: “We’ve been sitting around over the past few days trying to figure out the rotation between our bowling unit and we’ve also got Ben Stokes to factor in at some point as well, which will change the balance to our squad,” Campbell said.

There seemed to be a possibility of play on the final morning at the Riverside, but captains Scott Borthwick and James Vince shook hands after a midday inspection. The recent downpours at the ground have come after a winter of little respite for groundstaff up and down the country due to consistent rainfall.

“After 30-odd years in the game, I don’t think I’ve sat through four days without play,” Campbell said. “I think everyone in England knows how much rain there’s been, even though it has been fine during the game. The one thing that people haven’t seen is the amount of rain overnight.

“It’s disappointing, obviously. We wanted to test ourselves against a very good Hampshire team but we didn’t get that opportunity, so we’ll put the cue back in the rack, shake it off and head down to Birmingham… I think it’ll be a brilliant game against a really good side who have done well in Division One in recent times. We are ready to be tested.”

Vince said that the main area of concern was the bowlers’ run-ups. “I must admit, when we turned up on Thursday and saw the ground, we did fear that this outcome would be a possibility,” he said. “Although it has not rained much in the days, the top-ups overnight have meant that the run-ups and the outfield couldn’t cope.

“I think it has marginally improved today, but still the run-ups are still kind of muddy. I think after one or two overs it would have turned into mud and there would have been the danger there for the bowlers especially at this time of year. It’s incredibly frustrating but at the end of the day, you can’t do anything about it.

“With there not being much rainfall during the days, it feels a bit odd. I don’t think I’ve actually played a [four-day] game where there’s actually not been a ball bowled. It feels like we’ve been up here for a long time and done very little.” Hampshire face Lancashire at the Utilita Bowl from Friday.

Source: ESPN Crickinfo