Durham close in after Wood fires

Middlesex opener Sam Robson stood firm as Durham piled on the pressure in search of their first Championship victory of the season. Robson finished day three at Chester-le-Street on 42 not out with the visitors 90 for two in their second innings and still trailing by 148 after being asked to follow on.

Chris Rushworth had earlier trapped Chris Rogers leg-before for one with the score on five before Keaton Jennings took a fine diving catch off the bowling of Mark Wood to remove Dawid Malan and leave the champions in the driving seat heading into the final day.

Having resumed their first innings in deep trouble at 69 for 4 in reply to Durham's mammoth 568 for nine declared, Middlesex initially made solid progress. However, with Joe Denly and John Simpson having put together a partnership of 114, Simpson's stumps were demolished by a full-toss from Ben Stokes, prompting a sheepish apology from the bowler.

The visitors' fortunes were to take a further turn for the worse two balls before the scheduled lunch break when John Hastings found the shoulder of Denly's bat and Michael Richardson snapped up his third catch of the innings in the gully.

They might have been even worse off had Stokes managed to cling on to a sharp chance at gully off Rushworth after lunch which let Paul Stirling off the hook on 17, and the batsman took full advantage to reach 50 off 96 balls. He and Toby Roland-Jones put on 89 for the seventh wicket before the Irishman chipped Scott Borthwick to Jennings at short leg having added just five more to his score.

Roland-Jones, whose 5 for 103 was the only significant bowling contribution in Durham's first innings, completed his 50 off 80 balls and had progressed to a career-best 63 by the time he dragged on a ball from Mark Wood to leave the visitors at 320 for 8 at tea. They managed just four more runs as Steven Finn was bowled by Wood for 2 - he ended with 4 for 75 from 14 overs - before Borthwick had Tim Murtagh stumped for 42 to end the innings on 330, 89 short of the follow-on figure.