Bears collapse without stars.

Byline: Brian Halford

WARWICKSHIRE'S visit to First Division leaders Durham provided a test of how their batting unit could cope without Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell.

On the first day came the stark answer. It couldn't.

Deprived of England pair Trott and Bell, who top the county batting this season with 1,013 runs at an average of 92.09 and 774 at 64.50, respectively, the Bears were skittled for 135.

Even without their own England duo Graham Onions and Steve Harmison, and further hit by the loss of Mark Davies to injury, Durham overpowered a Warwickshire top order forced to lean heavily on men miles from form.

Before this game, skipper Ian Westwood had failed to reach 25 in 11 of 12 championship innings. Jim Troughton had a top score of 18 in nine. Tim Ambrose had passed 30 twice in 11.

All three extended their thin trots as Warwickshire lost their last eight wickets for 65. By the close Durham were 173 for four, already 38 in front, after vigorously counter-attacking a bowl-inunit hampered by limited input from Sreesanth, who tweaked a buttock while batting.

Warwickshire's decision to bat on a sporting but decent track was sound. Unfortunately, their batting wasn't. Callum Thorp, bowling fast and straight, won lbw shouts against Westwood and Troughton then, after Ant Botha and Tony Frost took the score to 70 for two just before lunch, the innings crumbled.

Dale Benkenstein was the unlikely catalyst. He came on with only two wickets to his credit this season but took just four overs to add three more as Botha chipped to mid-wicket and Ambrose and Frost edged behind. Rikki Clarke resisted for 32 (63 balls, six fours) but Thorpe returned to win further lbw decisions against him and championship debutant Ateeq Javed.

Protecting only 135, the Bears had to bowl at their best but Michael Di Venuto struck the first three balls of Durham's reply, from Boyd Rankin, for four and, as at Trent Bridge last week, Warwickshire's seamers mixed too many short balls with the better ones. Di Venuto clouted 40 from 35 balls before edging a good one from Naqaash Tahir.

Rankin bounced back with two wickets, including Shiv Chanderpaul slickly caught by Javed at leg-gully, but the match hurried even further away from the Bears in the last hour when Benkenstein and Ian Blackwell added an unbroken 76 in 16 overs.

CAPTION(S):

Down on his luck: Warwickshire captain Ian Westwood was dismissed cheaply again.