Durham

Anyone who claims that they tipped Durham to not so much walk but breezily jog away with the County Championship last season is a liar or failing that, a lunatic. This would have seemed even more ridiculous at the end of April when their top four batsmen were struggling to average double figures, coupled with a financial situation befitting their long term association with Northern Rock. The repercussions of overspending, even in the context of regular international fixtures at the Riverside, was by no means atypical but from last season's points deduction to the obvious lack of depth to this year's squad, it will remain a long term issue.

Yet the improbable and much-analysed journey after Geoff Cook's heart attack and subsequent recovery, which will inevitably rank amongst the great never-to-be-made TV movie biopics, have very much muddied the waters as to this season's realistic expectations. While the fearless young players who unexpectedly became regulars are now a year older and wiser, the need to trim the bloated wage bill, something the board have managed with a ruthless streak of which Gideon Osborne would be proud, has left the squad looking thinner than ex-Durham man David Warner's chances of winning "Australian Man of Tact and Subtlety 2014".

It would be easy to focus on the human interest aspect of Durham's Championship win, as rarely could there have been a side that provided such an easy narrative to explore. Indeed the triumph over adversity in the face of Geoff Cook's heart attack, which in turn galvanised a young team who came through under his stewardship, has been much explored since the title was secured.

Rightly so of course, as it's a genuine feelgood story made only the sweeter by the fact it was led by Paul Collingwood, the stoic everyman of England's 2009 peak, of whom you would struggle to find a cricket fan who would say a bad word about his character. This has all been covered in impressive depth elsewhere, yet the reasons behind the on-field success have been relatively ignored in favour of the understandable human interest.

In some regards, Durham's season and future has been one based on cutting back on the excesses which followed the back to back Championships in 2008 and 2009. That winning mentality fell gradually apart, with a much documented lack of discipline and drop in professionalism starting to eat away at the club.

Durham's season has reached the point where a montage may become necessary. Through being written off by press, points deductions, crippling financial difficulties, Geoff Cook's heart attack, a litany of injuries and international call-ups at crucial moments , they are leading the Championship going into the penultimate round having just brushed aside their two nearest rivals. It needs the requisite motivational soundtrack of '80s rock, dynamic action, slow-motion snapshots of ecstasy and agony that fades to a tear-jerking motivational speech. As Billy Bob Thornton memorably intoned near the end of Friday Night Lights "My heart is full boys".

While the YB40 campaign self-destructed in comic fashion at Derbyshire, it had always felt like a sideshow to the growing momentum of the Championship charge. With such a young squad and with no small degree of natural pessimism, there was a concern the abject nature of the limited-overs collapse would knock confidence. It was therefore fitting that while Yorkshire tried to contrive a win at Sussex through declaration bowling, Durham instead blew Derbyshire away with a display which said everything about belief and, crucially, what makes Graham Onions still such an improbably underrated bowler.

Cricket is a game that naturally lends itself to poring over statistics but it is those intangibles like team spirit, belief and perhaps a youthful lack of fear which have triumphed. The game against Surrey, a side who look bereft of any of those qualities was a case in point. Aside from Hashim Amla and the terrifying Greek god made flesh Chris Tremlett, they looked beaten as soon as the wickets starting falling, especially when nightmarish cyber-punk parody Jade Dernbach threw not only his toys but most of his bedding out of the pram in disgust at the meek nature of the performance. Against them were no great stars but in the main a raft of academy products with minimal Championship experience.

That Durham made it through to the FLt20 quarter finals came as a shock to most fans who've had to endure years of underachievement and rank incompetence in the competition. Their single appearance at Finals Day came in 2008 after heavy investment in Shaun Pollock and Albie Morkel, while further sporadic hints at progress have spluttered briefly into life before a collective nervous breakdown at the crucial moment. Despite attempts to throw money at the problem, there's been a creeping apathy amongst members that, as long as we're doing well in the Championship, why should we bother with this novelty cricket; a self-fulfilling snobbishness in the face of the fun that other people appear to be having down south.

Yet, with five wins in the last six games, there's cautious optimism and it may prove to be the most crucial year to have stumbled upon a formula. Financial restraints have meant that without big-name overseas players, success has been built around players who have graduated through the academy. Next year's season-long T20 will benefit sides who haven't relied on bringing aging, if pleasingly familiar, T20 mercenaries who spends their life chasing sun around the globe like a perma-tanned gin-soaked dowager.

If the partnership between stand-in captain Mark Stoneman and the never-dull Phil Mustard at the top of innings picked itself, it was the tinkering in the batting line-up and the eventual realisation that taking pace off the ball might just be the way to go that were crucial. A shocking revelation of course, but it seems as though this notion has only just trickled north, presumably along with news of the Hutton Inquiry and that there really is some hope of Finding Nemo.

As trite as it sounds, the news of Durham head coach Geoff Cook's heart attack on Thursday put the great strides his side have made over the past month into stark perspective. Since making their first-class debut in 1992, Cook has been a pivotal figure in the county's development, from captain, through academy director then onwards to first team coach, overseeing the first silverware with 2007's Friends Provident Trophy win followed by back to back Championship wins.

It is impossible to overestimate the impact his paternal and inspiring leadership has had on the club, not just in silverware but his role in leading and developing the club's great talents from Paul Collingwood to Ben Stokes. Importantly, he also brought Dale Benkenstein, arguably the county's greatest ever player, to the club in 2004 and it is he, along with Jon Lewis, another player who arrived at the club with his career drifting and never really left, who'll be asked to guide the club while Cook hopefully gets himself fit enough to return to the job.

His absence comes at a time when against many pre-season predictions, the team goes into the T20 break looking as good as it has at any time since the 2008 Championship win. In a local newspaper column, Steve Harmison, still a Durham player in contract only, commented that Cook had the squad in a position that meant they were able to manage themselves in his absence, such were the expectations he instilled in the team. The first team, led by the inspirational Collingwood, now has a core of young players, with the recent victory over Warwickshire featuring only four players over 26. While Collingwood is showing clear signs of being in decline with the bat, he's taken on a role reminiscent of Mike Brearley with England, in that the Championship side would be substantially diminished without his experience and tactical knowhow. With Dale Benkenstein's absence through a shoulder injury for still, as yet, underdetermined period, his presence will be even more vital without Cook's presence.

Cricket, to misappropriate a well-worn cliché, is a funny old game. A non-fan of what I presume, given you're reading a somewhat niche county blog, is also one of your abiding obsessions, recently remarked to me that the "stupid sport that takes five days" was inaccessible and he'd never get into it, like it were homeopathy, North Korean Communism or Esperanto. My dismissive frown perhaps reinforced his long held prejudice as I bayed that this couldn't possibly be true. "Regardless," he said, being at least supportive of my writing, "whatever shall you write about this month?" My jubilance at thoughtfully replying that the heavy roller had become crucial, I suspect, has done little to subvert his dismissal of "that stupid sport".

Yet Durham's season, one which promises to currently have more ups and downs than an over exuberant lift operator, has indeed turned on the change in pitches. This has ensured county cricket is rather more like it's grown up Test brother in that some of them are deadly slow and lifeless. It's perfectly fair to say that in recent years Durham's rise has been largely based around their ability to producing their fair share of top class seamers from Steve Harmison through the young, pre-wayward Liam Plunkett to Graham Onions and cherry-picking the odd under-appreciated talent such as Ottis Gibson and Callum Thorp. As a result, the thought of a season where even in May that pitches would be slow, low and spin-friendly would have spent most Durham fans running for the 2009 copy of Wisden to try and reassure themselves with lashings of homely statistics of a season where everyone was reassuringly caught behind. But the unexpected transformation of Durham from an easily stereotyped pace monster into an altogether more subtle beast has been a qualified joy to behold.

Paul Collingwood's captaincy has been crucial and the turnaround since the gentle malaise the side were coaxed into under Phil Mustard seems a distant memory. Collingwood's sheer positivity, whether that be in field placing or in declarations has been pivotal in a season where you could well imagine a plethora of tedious draws once the weather hopefully improves later in the summer. Draws won't win you a Championship; they may save face once and a while but the need to chase glory and sometimes be burned may well be decisive this summer.

In another world, where the County Championship is a behemoth which stands intimidatingly astride the television schedules, an innovative executive has not failed to recognise an opportunity. Amid the never-ending deluge of reality TV, the executive has pitched, presumably to great acclaim, 'How do you solve a problem like Di Venuto?'

In that orgy of self-congratulation that follows it has become apparent that the nation's hive mind has been transfixed on the frailties of Durham's top order, which have yet to recover from the loss of their dominant Tasmanian, Michael Di Venuto, to the ravages of old age, injury and latterly the unenviable task of teaching Phil Hughes not to waft aimlessly outside of off-stump as Australia's batting coach.

While Durham's victory in their opening game against an arguably declining Somerset side was a cause for optimism akin to unexpectedly finding £20 in a trouser pocket on a Sunday morning, the Warwickshire hammering was like reaching into the other pocket o find that you'd left your wallet in the taxi.