Onions Brings Harmison in Line for a Share of Yorkshire Wickets

Steve Harmison produced his best figures of the season in front of the England selector James Whitaker but a trio of younger players deserved to figure more prominently in the former Leicestershire captain's report to Lord's.

Graham Onions upstaged Harmison as the pick of Durham's attack, claiming his first five-wicket haul since a similarly impressive performance in a home victory against Yorkshire almost exactly 12 months ago. The 25-year-old pitched the ball up and nipped it both ways to claim three of the first five wickets to fall and, although Harmison also played his part in reducing Yorkshire to 50 for six, he is still struggling for control and consistency, sending far too many deliveries - including his first five with the new ball - harmlessly outside the leg stump of the visitors' left-handers.

Adil Rashid, the 20-year-old leg-spinning all-rounder who played with Onions for England Lions against New Zealand last week, then led a partial recovery, initially in a sensible seventh-wicket stand of 85 with Tim Bresnan. Onions returned to pluck out Bresnan's middle stump and remove Darren Gough in consecutive overs but Rashid went on to a gutsy 70 with 11 wristy boundaries until he was last out, flashing at Harmison, who therefore ended with three for 40.

Bresnan had earlier ended Michael Di Venuto's hopes of a double century with a big inswinger to trap him lbw for 184 with the second ball of the day and the powerful 23-year-old continued to bowl well for final figures of four for 73.

The veteran New Zealander Paul Wiseman also underlined his all-round value with a dogged half-century, to secure Durham maximum batting points, and Onions kept them on course for a first championship win of the season at the third attempt, although Dale Benkenstein seemed to let Yorkshire off the hook by choosing not to enforce the follow-on, thereby sparing their young openers a tricky four-over session before the close.