Davies and Burke down Durham

Resurgent Surrey moved clear as Group A leaders in the Royal London Cup as they beat holders Durham by 49 runs at Chester-le-Street.

Both teams went into the match with two wins and one washout, but Surrey had the two star performers in Steven Davies and the unheralded James Burke. Following his 99 against Northants on Tuesday, Davies made 98 after holding the innings together following a flying start with Jason Roy.

After being put in, they had 78 on the board inside 12 overs, but Durham fought back well to restrict the visitors to 271 for 7, only for Burke to rip out their middle order.

The 24-year-old seam bowling allrounder from Plymouth struck three times in his first five overs. He had Graham Clark lbw for a duck, clean bowled Paul Collingwood and had Gordon Muchall caught behind with another good one.

With left-handers Phil Mustard and Scott Borthwick falling when trying to sweep Gareth Batty after Mark Stoneman pulled Tom Curran straight to deep midwicket, Durham slumped to 114 for 6. It became 164 for 8 before they sent in the big-hitting John Hastings, whose 31 off 27 balls was in vain as they were all out for 222 in the 47th over.

In Surrey's innings the first four overs produced 32, but Collingwood stemmed the onslaught after his first over cost ten. Roy fell for 34 when he dragged an attempted sweep into his stumps then Kumar Sangakkara edged behind for 3.

Ben Foakes edged a drive off Usman Arshad for Borthwick to hold a very sharp chance at gully. When Davies pulled a four in Borthwick's first over it proved to be the last boundary for 17 overs as the legspinner and Collingwood kept a tight rein.

Gary Wilson went down the pitch and edged Borthwick to Mustard, who then stumped Davies when offspinner Ryan Pringle returned and turned one past the advancing left-hander. Davies faced 109 balls and added only three fours to the five each which he and Roy hit in the first ten overs.

Burke broke the boundary famine by swinging Pringle over midwicket for six and after Zafar Ansari made a useful 41 there was another six in the final over.

It was flat-batted back over Chris Rushworth's head as Tom Curran made an unbeaten 26 off 19 balls. He followed up with very accurate bowling and ended Durham's hopes when he had Hastings caught in the deep after taking ten off the first three balls of his final over.