Will Smith's calmness gives Durham hope of staving off Sussex

Durham202 for 4 (Smith 90*) trail Sussex 552 (Salt 130, Haines 124, Burgess 96, Finch 56, Brown 52) by 350 runs
Scorecard

When Will Smith returned to Durham last September he was moving against the flow of traffic. In the prolonged aftermath of the sanctions imposed in 2016 a number of the county's players had decided their futures lay elsewhere. Yet Smith spoke of his delight at having the chance to come home and his presence at the Riverside will be all the more welcome if he continues to fight as hard in adversity as he did on the second day of this match. His unbeaten 90 was characteristically flinty and it has encouraged Durham's hopes that they might avoid defeat even as they respond to Sussex's 552.

Yet the intensity of the cricket at the Castle Ground was in pleasing contrast to the serenity of the setting and both were appreciated by a large crowd, albeit most of them are hoping for a Sussex victory. At the tea interval, when Smith was unbeaten on 46, a line of spectators considered the view through the gap in this ground's many rings of trees. The Arun valley's very gentle hills were not quite blue but they will surely be remembered. Monarch's Way meandered in the distance and one almost expected the London train to billow smoke from a funnel. This is a Laurie Lee summer.

By close of play Smith could look back on a little over four hours of nudges, pushes and deflections, the unfussy stock-in-trade of the professional batsman. They had taken Durham to 202 for 4, still 350 shy of Sussex's total but a far better position than 96 for 3, the score when Graham Clark was bowled attempting to pull a Luke Wells leg break. Smith had also hit ten fours, some of them swept, like the boundary which took him to fifty just after tea. Whatever their allegiances the large crowd had enjoyed it all, even if they reserved special cheers for the home side's four successes.

As the total mounted the soft breeze nudged the trees with no greater effect than that of rearranging the sun-shadow on the branches. Two members of Wisden's editorial staff attended the game and did some diligent fieldwork while Monty, the Almanack's dog, drowsed on a rug beside them. Perhaps he will be named one of the Five Cricketers of some future year. Yeshwant Barde, the exchange umpire, signalled Smith's boundaries so elegantly that a string quartet might have accepted his direction.

Having removed Tom Latham for 2 in the over before lunch, Sussex may have hoped that the pressure of facing a large total would prompt a greater clatter of wickets. If so, they underestimated both Smith and Durham. Cameron Steel slashed Danny Briggs to backward point but that and the wicket of Clark were the home side's only successes of the afternoon session. In the evening, Paul Collingwood helped Smith add a further 82 before he was lbw for 44 when attempting to sweep Wells. Sussex's hopes may now rest on the new ball when it becomes available six overs into the morning and on the bounce which both Briggs and Wells extracted from an otherwise blameless Arundel pitch.

There had been portents of Durham's later resilience during the first session, if limiting a side to 552 all out can be viewed so rosily. Instead of a score in excess of 600, Sussex had to settle for their best total at Arundel after Ben Brown had skied a pull off Chris Rushworth in the third over of the day and David Wiese had fallen leg before to his first ball. But Michael Burgess reinforced his already excellent reputation and Sussex's leading scorer in this season's Championship cricket was only four short of second century of the campaign when he slashed Josh Coughlin to backward point.