Weighell and Jennings highlight Durham's resolve

Durham 190 and 154 for 4 (Jennings 88*) need 84 more runs to beat Warwickshire 313 and 114 (Weighell 5-33)
Scorecard

Durham supporters steeling themselves for the possibility of another Test mismatch at Chester-le-Street after events at Headingley can at least find consolation that this Championship encounter has been made of sterner stuff. For three days, the leaders Warwickshire have failed to kill off a dogged challenge by Durham, the upshot being that they will begin the final morning 84 runs short with six wickets remaining. There is no doubt where the grittiest cricket has been on show.

When it comes to toughness of character, Keaton Jennings loves nothing better than to sandpaper a bowling attack into submission. He began the season against Lancashire with centuries in both innings - only the third Durham batsman to achieve the feat - and his unbeaten 88 showed the same unyielding qualities. His fifth-wicket stand with Paul Collingwood was worth 67 from 23 overs at the close.

Viewed through an international prism, as they are about to be, Durham, the hosts for the second Test, are in a mess. Appalling Test advance sales seemingly give them no immediate hope of reducing debts totalling £5m, especially with Ben Stokes hors de combat, but on the field, under the captaincy of Collingwood, their tenacity can be taken for granted.

Durham's tail is a long one: this match remains decidedly in the balance. But if they pull this one off, back-to-back wins (they beat the leaders Lancashire at Emirates Riverside last week) would be a powerful retort to those who imagined they might be relegation fodder. Instead it is Surrey, rich enough to lend them a few bob, whose season is turning sour.

Durham's ability to produce cricketers in the north-east also deserves to command huge respect, and it has been exemplified here at Edgbaston by James Weighell, the latest fast bowler to come off the production line - the result of a strong academy and a willingness to cast their net far and wide. Others can learn from that.

A 22-year-old from Middlesbrough, border country where Durham's raids are these days considerable more successful than Yorkshire's, Weighell has twice set career-best figures in only his fourth first-class match, following up four wickets in the first innings with 5 for 33 second time around to return 9 for 130 in the match.

He took all his wickets in the first innings from around the wicket - utilising it as an unusually persistent ploy against the right-hander - but he adjusted the balance towards a more conventional approach on the third day in conditions that gave plenty of encouragement to pace bowlers maintaining an attacking length.

With Chris Woakes on the road north to join England - Warwickshire's best bowling return for half a century safely gathered in - it was tempting to feel some sympathy for the effect that it would have on their Championship challenge until the thought dawned that Durham's pace bowling stocks are currently weakened by the absence not just of Stokes and his England colleague Mark Wood, but also Chris Rushworth, whose 83 wickets last season made him the PCA cricketer of the year

Fielding a trio of wet-behind-the-ears pace bowlers, Durham bowled themselves right back into the match by dismissing Warwickshire for 114 in their second innings, challenging the perception that their Woakes-inspired deficit of 123 on first innings was as good as terminal.

Weighell was the prime reason. Warwickshire, resuming on 15 for 2, soon lost Andrew Umeed, who had made a century on Championship debut in the first innings, but who edged an excellent lifting delivery from Weighell. Ian Bell fell to a yorker and Weighell also added to the misery of Sam Hain whose desperately thin Championship season - a season in which he might have been expected to blossom - continued when he hacked a nondescript ball onto his stumps. Tim Ambrose caught at short leg on the stroke of lunch and a miscue to midwicket by Oliver Hannon-Dalby completed his five-for.

Durham could be forgiven for identifying Keith Barker as the bowler they most feared as they set off in pursuit of 238. Barker, Warwickshire's stocky left-arm swing bowler, has been Durham's nemesis for years. There was a maiden century in 2011, the bowling figures behind two innings defeats in 2014 and another Championship hundred last season. One look at his sizeable frame sends them all a quiver.

As it was, the threat came from a different source. It was the ganglier figure of Chris Wright who spearheaded Warwickshire's challenge in a post-tea spell of 4 for 10 in 24 balls which disturbed the equanimity that had taken hold during a circumspect opening stand of 87 in 30 overs between Jennings and Mark Stoneman.

In Woakes' absence, and with no signs of turn for Jeetan Patel or Woakes' stand-in - the legspinner Josh Poysden - Wright's intervention was necessary. Scott Borthwick got the best delivery of all, which left him sharply to hit off stump, and when Michael Richardson pulled to midwicket few would have reckoned on Durham having a 50-50 chance of victory by the close.