No Blast-off as bowlers give Bears a rocket!

DURHAM launched their Vitality Blast campaign with an impressive three-wicket victory over the Bears at Edgbaston.

- By ECB REPORTERS NETWORK

The home side were 143 all out from exactly 20 overs after only Sam Hain (45 from 28 balls) came close to salvaging the innings from the wretched foundation of four for three. Durham bowled superbly as a unit with Jimmy Neesham taking three wickets and Callum Parkinson, Nathan Sowter and Ben Raine two apiece.

Ollie Robinson (45, 36) and Gra-ham Clark (40, 23) then lifted the visitors to 147 for seven with 17 balls to spare to condemn the Bears to back-to-back defeats to start their campaign.

"The start killed us," admitted head coach Ian Westwood. "Three down with four runs on the board put a lot on Hainy to get us to a score, which he is good enough to do and looked like he was going to, but every time we got a bit of momen-tum we lost a wicket. That carried on all the way through and we ended up limping to an under-par score.