Akshar Patel has made a memorable county debut for Durham. Patel, who is primarily a spinner, batted with the lower order and tail-enders to score an unbeaten 95 off 99 balls against Glamorgan. Thanks to his fighting knock, Durham managed to put a respectable total on a tough Cardiff pitch.

Responding to Glamorgan’s paltry score of 154 in the first innings, Durham top order got start but failed to make it count. Opening batsman Alex Lees was the only notable contributor among the batsmen, scoring 69 runs with 12 boundaries.

After the middle order collapse, Akshar led the counter-attack with wicketkeeper-batsman Stuart Poynter, who made 29. Patel mostly batted with the tailenders and scored most of his runs in boundaries. His innings was laced with 12 fours and 2 sixes. Durham’s first innings eventually ended on 295, securing a massive lead of 141 runs.

The left-arm spinner also claimed two wickets in just 19 balls in the first innings while scalped one wicket in the second innings.

Glamorgan got bundled out for 111 in the second innings as Durham won the match by an innings and 30 runs. Chris Rushworth was the stand-out bowler for Durham in the second innings, claiming 5 wickets for 28 runs.