Durham County Cricket Club was founded on May 23, 1882, but despite winning the minor counties championship a record-equalling nine times, they had to wait another 109 years to become a first-class county.
A year later, they played their first season in the County Championship but — as expected for a side that had only just gained first-class status — they struggled to get to grips with a higher level of cricket for a while, even though they made the quarter-final of the limited-overs Natwest Trophy in 1992. This was despite having players such as England all-rounder Ian Botham and Australia batsman Dean Jones as well as seasoned pros like David Graveney, Simon Hughes and future coach Geoff Cook to try to help the youngsters at the club. They suffered many heavy defeats and regularly occupied the bottom three of the Championship table in each of their first six seasons (in 1996, they didn’t win a single four-day game). A famous example of this was when they were on the opposing end of Brian Lara’s world-record score of 501 not out for Warwickshire at Edgbaston in 1994.
In their first three years at the top, Durham CCC played all over the North East as they didn’t have a proper headquarters. That changed in 1995 when the Riverside Ground in Chester-Le-Street was opened. Their maiden first-class match there was against Warwickshire in May of that year. Four years later, the ground staged a couple of Cricket World Cup matches before hosting its first ever England game, an ODI against the West Indies on the 16th June 2000. Three years later, England played their first Test match there against Zimbabwe, which the home side won by an innings and 69 runs.
Meanwhile, things looked up on the pitch in 1999 when Durham finished eight out of 18 teams in the final season of the one-tier County Championship before it split into two divisions of nine, which meant they played in the first division the following year. However they were one of the first three teams relegated to Division Two that same year.
But despite their limited domestic success so far, they did produce England Internationals such as all-rounder Paul Collingwood and fast bowler Steve Harmison, who would go on to be key members of the Three Lions team during the 2000s. However, Durham still struggled to make a significant mark on the county circuit during the first half of the decade, which culminated in them finishing bottom of the County Championship Second Division in 2004, as well as struggling in the 40-over national league and the T20 cup.
2005 saw a drastic change in fortunes when, under the captaincy of Australia batsman Mike Hussey, Durham were promoted to the top divisions of both the Championship and the one-day league. South African Dale Benkenstein took over as captain the following year as Durham drew with Yorkshire in their final game of the County Championship season to avoided relegation by just half a point, but they weren’t so lucky in the Pro40 league as they went straight back down from the first division.
The 2007 season was their best yet. After signing the Australian batsman Michael Di Venuto on a Kolpak deal, they had finished second in the County Championship and regained promotion back to the top division of the Pro40 competition. But their crowning achievement that year came at Lords on when they defeated Hampshire by 125 runs in the Friends Provident Trophy to lift their first major trophy. Man of the Match Ottis Gibson also achieved something rare that season by taking all 10 wickets in an innings in a Championship match against the same opponents at the Riverside.
The following year bought even more success for the county when they secured their maiden County Championship title on the final day of the season with an innings and 71 run win over Kent in Canterbury. 2008 also saw them reach the semi-finals of the T20 cup – their only finals appearance to date – where they lost to eventual winners Middlesex by eight wickets at the Rose Bowl in Southampton.
Benkenstein stepped down as captain before the 2009 season and was replaced by Will Smith, but the success kept on coming. They retained the County Championship and went through the entire competition unbeaten, winning eight times. That season also saw seamer Graham Onions make his test debut for England, which led to him being part of the Ashes-winning team that summer alongside Durham team-mates Collingwood and Harmison.
After a disastrous start the following season, Smith was replaced as captain by Phil Mustard. Durham eventually finished fifth in the Championship but struggled in the Friends Provident T20 and Clydesdale 40-over competition, failing to go beyond the group stages in each one. 2011 was a bit of an improvement: third in the County Championship, quarter finals in the T20 cup and the semi-finals of the Clydesdale bank 40. All-rounder Ben Stokes made his England debut that season in ODI against India in Chester-le-Street, which ended in a no-result.
Collingwood replaced Mustard as skipper in 2012 as Durham found themselves bottom of Division One halfway through the season, but they put together a run of wins to climb out of the relegation zone and finish sixth. This set them up for a much better season in 2013 where they won their third County Championship title with a game to spare thanks largely to the Championship’s leading wicket-taker Onions as well as 1000 runs each for opener Mark Stoneman and all-rounder Scott Borthwick. This was despite head coach Geoff Cook suffering a heart attack in June of that season, which he recovered from in time to see the team lift the title The Ashes were staged in the North East of England for the very first time in 2013 with the fourth test taking place at the Riverside, which England won by 74 runs to take an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series.
Borthwick and Stokes would travel down under with the England squad that winter where the latter made the tourists’ only century that series during the third test in Perth but couldn’t prevent a 5-0 whitewash.
2014 bought more silverware for Durham in John Lewis’ first full season as head coach when they won the Royal London One-day cup after beating Warwickshire Bears by three wickets in the final at Lords, with departing off-spinner Gareth Breese fittingly scoring the winning runs. They surrendered the Championship title to Yorkshire but history was made when fast-bowler Chris Rushworth took 15 wickets in a day as Durham beat already-relegated Northamptonshire by an innings and 219 runs in Chester-le-Street.
This season, fast-bowler Mark Wood made his test debut for England against New Zealand at Lords while on the domestic front the North East side are currently third in the County Championship and trying to defend their Royal London one-day crown.
