Selection of this side posed very difficult questions, given that Durham’s first-class history spans only 16 years. How do you weigh one of the fine players who gave the fledgeling Durham a couple of years’ service in the autumn of their careers with a player making good progress but not yet a leading figure? All that can be done is to compare, objectively, the performances of the former “greats” in their short Durham years with the tyros of today. One of those who sadly doesn’t make it is Ian Botham, whose figures just came up short. At any rate, the selected XI will have to be prepared to die for Durham – and they probably will. Their outside chance of success lies in the sort of pitch seen at the Riverside in the recent past – a slow seamer – or, better still, the possibility of the game being played at Darlington, where swing tends to be king. The team has been selected accordingly – and there is no place for a spinner in the First XI.

1. Martin Love: One of Durham’s most significant signings to this point, 2001, the Queenslander was a pedigree No.3 batsman, still 27, but yet to play for Australia. He can hardly have thrilled at coming in early on the Riverside pitches of his time, but when he found a good one he cashed in (probably not a term he would use). Such a one was provided at Lord’s in 2002, where he made 251, and there was a surface of easy pace at Durham’s HQ where against Hampshire in 2003 he made 273, a Durham record. Over his three seasons with Durham, some truncated by injury and national demands, he averaged 57.82. Well capable of opening this innings.

2. Wayne Larkins: One who almost took this place was Paul Parker, the former Sussex captain, who made one of the strongest commitments to Durham’s inaugural years. His five hundreds in 1992-93 were memorable, and when he and Wayne Larkins made hundreds in the same match, Durham cruised to an historic first win - and a thumping one – over Glamorgan. But Larkins, who was also a classy slip fieldsman, wins the nod. He was nearing 40 when he came, but the abundant curls sprouting from under his headwear and his moustache gave him an authority that went with his bustling, audacious batting. “Ned”, as he was known, could almost have been born in County Durham rather than Bedfordshire. In 67 matches he averaged 37.52 – good going on what at that time were club pitches.

3. David Boon: The Tasmanian was Durham’s biggest signing, when he joined in 1997 for what became a three-season stay. As the most solid brick in the wall that was Australia’s middle order, he had also been man of the match in a World Cup final. Durham supporters warmed to him: indeed, with the addition of a little coal dust, he could easily have been mistaken for a 19th century pit man. He was a quietly-spoken captain, but none the less effective for that, and the players responded to his aura. Most importantly, as a batsman, he was rock solid at No 3. His average of 39.05, though it wouldn’t have been massive elsewhere, represented great value on Durham wickets, and was the best in Durham’s early years.

4. Paul Collingwood: His average for Durham is modestly in the mid-thirties, yet he is Durham’s outstanding home-grown batsman and, of course, the only one to play for England. He could captain this side, too, should it be necessary – which it isn’t. Whatever his figures at Durham, he seemed to make a point away from home in 2005, with consecutive innings, at Derby and Taunton, of 190, 12, 181 and 105 not out. Suddenly he appeared in a new light and, given his chance in Tests, seized opportunities abroad to battle to big scores. If his success as a Test middle-order batsman surprised many, the reason may well have been temperament. At any rate, none could argue with his 206 at Adelaide – a very rare Ashes double-century for an Englishman Down Under.

5. Dale Benkenstein: Captain. Almost certainly Durham’s best signing, he came with the tag of a “South African Paul Collingwood”. That was because he bowled medium pace and batted in the middle order, and had played limited-overs cricket for South Africa. But he has done a good deal more: a hugely dependable batsman scoring most runs in both 2005 and 2006, averaging in the 50s each time and being honoured as Player of the Year by both players and supporters in each of those seasons. And that, despite Mike Hussey leading the side and scoring heavily in 2005. It now seems clear that “Benks” should have been a South Africa Test player and, even, captain.

6. Phil Bainbridge: His is perhaps not a name as big as John Morris, who came from Derbyshire and scored 14 centuries. But Bainbridge’s average almost exactly matched Morris’s, and his canny medium-pace bowling adds an important extra dimension. The reputation he had established at Gloucestershire made him the sort of player Durham wanted at the outset, when he was 34, and he showed his commitment by being prepared to play second-team cricket in 1991 while the county awaited first-class recognition. Competitive and intelligent, he had already started his own business, and was a valued vice-captain. “I thrive on adversity,” he said, and it showed in the many backs-to-the-wall innings that were demanded of a Durham batsman. That isn’t properly reflected in the two centuries and an average of 32.88 in his 67 Durham matches.

7. Phil Mustard: You can’t pick Chris Scott, Durham’s first gloveman because that would mean referring to his drop of Brian Lara for 18, en route to 501. Nor does Martin Speight make it, for all his 192 catches and entertaining batting. It has to be Mustard, whose reputation is growing apace and whose liberated hitting is complemented by safe snaffling of so many victims – the first Durham ‘keeper to 200 catches and this season way ahead of any championship rival.

8. Liam Plunkett: Sadly, Neil “Killer” Killeen has to miss out. The 31-year-old continues to bowl straight and effectively in limited-over matches but he won’t be adding much to his 254 wickets collected over a decade-plus in the first-class game. It’s Plunkett who has the speed, the physique and the youth. He was 18 when, on championship debut at Headingley, he opened the bowling and took five wickets for 53. It was clear that he was quick and could swing the ball – a potent combination – and it was not so long before he won an England cap at 20. It’s true there are indifferent days when he generates neither pace nor movement, and some plain bad days. But with probably the best action of any Durham fast bowler - staying tall, with head still – he remains a selection “must”. There is, too, his burgeoning confidence as an attacking batsman, and his increasingly accomplished catching at gully.

9. Stephen Harmison: Durham’s highest-profile bowler. Although discovered and developed by the county, he hasn’t actually had devastating figures for them and has rarely been a match-winner. A best return, of six wickets for 52 - significantly, at Old Trafford - has been bettered by seven other Durham bowlers. The slower, seaming pitches at the Riverside in the early 1990s have offered little of the bounce that Harmison needs from near a good length. Still, 287 wickets at about 28 definitely puts him in the top three, and improving pace and bounce at the Riverside is reflected in his figures this season (in a limited number of matches) of 34 wickets at 17.00.

10. Melvyn Betts: Whistling up a fast bowler from down t’pit was supposed to be a Yorkshire gift, but the mining county of Durham might be thought to share it. Certainly their leading bowlers – all of them home-grown – have tended to make bigger headlines than their batsmen. One who doesn’t make this selection is Alan Walker, an archetypal hard-working seam bowler, despite his eight for 118 at that bowlers’ graveyard of Chelmsford in 1995 – Durham’s third-best bowling figures. Another who isn’t a household name but does make the team is Betts, whose nine for 64 in 1997 were Durham’s best bowling figures until Ottis Gibson plundered his ten-in-an-innings this summer. Arguably, Betts has been Durham’s most dangerous bowler – on his day. You can say that of many bowlers, but on occasion the force was certainly with Betts to a special degree.

11. Simon Brown: Durham’s greatest bowler may be Harmison if you judge it on his best Test figures. Otherwise it’s Brown. He still has the best two wicket hauls (77 and 74) in a season and almost every year topped the 50 mark. Left-arm fast, swinging it both ways, he earned a single Test selection, and with his tenth ball trapped Pakistan’s Aamir Sohail leg-before. With one more wicket in the match it was a modest Test career, but a mighty one for Durham: his 518-wicket tally is very nearly twice as big as anyone else’s.

My favourite XI

1. Martin Love: An Aussie you definitely couldn’t call brash. How could you with a name like Love? There was something appealing about the apologetic tilt of his head and shoulders, echoing a remark made by the modest Jack Hobbs to an affronted Arthur Wellard, after the latter’s first ball of the match was hit through the off side and finished underneath the covers, from whence it was returned scuffed and dirty with cinders: “I only played a half-shot at it, Arthur.” Once, when Love was batting at Durham, a cheer suddenly came from the opposition fielders: it signified that their efforts to wind him up had finally prompted him to say something, brief and mundane though that was. Otherwise, it was front foot to the ball – or rather, just inside it – and dreamy off or cover-drives.

2. Jon Lewis: He and Martin Love make a good temperamental pairing. Known as ‘”JJ” (his initials are JJB) he came to Durham without the sound of trumpets but proved just the man for tricky Riverside wickets – and there were definitely some dour surfaces in the early 2000s. He captained, too, for five years from 2000. His crouch at the crease, backside stuck out, signified a classic “dig-me-out-if-you-can’”opener, his most prolific scoring shot a tuck off his legs. But no one has played as many matches for Durham as his 148, or scored more runs than his 7,854.

3. James Daley: James Arthur Daley might remind some of a famous chancer down London way. But Jimmy Daley was made of different material: a young man from Sunderland and a stylish batsman. Indeed he was probably the greatest stylist of the county’s home-grown players. Eighteen when he started, he made his first appearances at the end of the inaugural season, and immediately impressed with successive innings of 88 (against Andy Caddick in full cry) and 80 not out. His cover driving was wonderful, and even his defensive play had a touch of artistry. Throughout his ten years there was a crackle of excitement around the ground when he walked to the wicket, but the supporters’ favourite had fragile finger bones and a career of many interruptions ended with an average of under 30. Nineteen fifties and four hundreds were collectors’ items.

4. Paul Collingwood: From somewhere back in pre-history – well, earlier in this decade – comes a flashback of Paul Collingwood gazing darkly at a Riverside pitch on which he has made a careful 15 or 20 and then pushed forward only to get a thin outside edge. He, among others, thought that on those pitches you were living on borrowed time, your number writ clearly on some forthcoming ball. If that sabotaged confidence, it perhaps also built character. And on better pitches in international cricket he has risen to heights never suspected of him, albeit usually in grafting mode. Now, given an occasional opportunity back at the Riverside, confidence is high and he can revert to the game the fans regard as the essential Collingwood: blocking the balls that demand it, then unloosing clattering cover drives and aerial drives wide of mid-on.

5. Dale Benkenstein: Fear the quiet man, they say. And follow him, too. Confidence springs from the sight of “Benks” stepping – not striding - to the wicket with a quiet, measured tread. Other batsmen’s heads may be full of some pre-selected plan, or simply buzzing with too much thought. But his head seems to be clear as, to his first ball, he quickly, simply, plays the required shot. It might be defensive, may be a leave, or equally a simple drive into the covers. Wonderful. I call him Captain Calm.

6. Phil Mustard: For obvious reasons, he’s called The Colonel, but the essential Mustard is far from a colonel character. More a careless, truculent teenager. When he’s out early, he might as well be a student giving up in disgust on an exam paper he just can’t fathom. But he can also be in full flow very quickly, and what strokes he plays. Typically, uninhibited drives through extra cover and mid-wicket – five fours off consecutive balls in a recent Pro40 match - plus the odd huge hit to clear the terraces and big reverse sweeps. There probably isn’t a first-class player who thinks less about his batting – and, if true, what a virtue that can be!

7. Ottis Gibson: Don’t mention the two Test matches for West Indies (1995 and 1999), forget the good work for three South African provinces in the late 1990s, ignore the workhouse stints at Glamorgan and Leicestershire…just couple the name of O.D.Gibson with a career best ten for 47 at Chester-le-Street on July 22, 2007, at age 38. The workhorse seemed almost to have been given grazing rights when signed by Durham in 2005. But his response has been dramatic. It came first with the bat, improving on his single career century (101 not out) with an innings of 155 in the last match of 2006, saving Durham from near-certain relegation. Then, this season, with the ball. First he took seven for 81, a best in county cricket, against Yorkshire at Riverside. Then came his ten-wicket return. His controlled swing bowling and pace has consigned younger bowlers to mere support players. And the crowd has cheered his every move.

8. Mark Davies: He gets the nod for bowling that has always been compellingly enthusiastic and attacking. Indeed, for some time he ran through the crease so fast that in his follow-through he almost lost balance and had to throw in a couple of extra steps to recover – like someone getting off a moving train. At a bit above a lively medium pace he’s committed to attacking swing bowling, always being prepared to aim at the leg stump and hope the ball will swing back, prepared to take the consequences when it doesn’t, never opting for the containing option. Sometimes he suffers for that. And has suffered, too, from back and lung problems. But when he gets it right, he will torment batsmen with a teasing, in-between length, as he did in 2004, when he was the first bowler in the country to 50 wickets (nine ahead of the field) and in 2005 when he had 47 championship wickets at 15.55 before the physical problems recurred.

9. Melvyn Betts: On his day, regarded as delivering devastating swing bowling at high pace. But in fact he was lively medium-fast rather than express pace – the truth, perhaps, was that his spirited action and aggression made it look high speed, especially when the ball kept beating the bat. His nine for 64 at Northampton came from 22 unchanged overs, while even the great Simon Brown was rendered a spectator at the other end. Two months earlier, Betts had seven for 29 at Darlington, a ground where the atmospherics could be particularly suited to swing bowling. Three years later he took seven for 30 there. Betts had the reputation of being a bit of a loose cannon, but Mel the Pell-Mell visibly gave it everything. A bowler you definitely want in your side if there’s a chance of assistance from the conditions – and also to liven up a dull day.

10. Simon Brown: His arresting features gave him the look of a junior cavalry officer in a Thomas Hardy novel, and there is something of a 19th century ring in the name of Simon John Emmerson Brown, born Cleadon, Co Durham. But for all the power of persona, and his dangerous swing, Brown had to be something of a workhorse, given Durham’s limited bowling resources in their first decade. Innings after innings, he bowled about 25 overs and sometimes more, until in the end his body simply wouldn’t take any more. How nice it would be to see him joining Harmison and co in an attack of all the talents.

11. David Graveney. His figures don’t get him into the “Test” team but now is the time to honour a left-arm slow bowler who delivered from an old-fashioned shuffle and with a generous loop. And, in the best traditions of his craft, remained reasonably good-humoured when he was being hit. Graveney was the first captain of Durham in the first-class era and his influence went far beyond on-field direction. PR came naturally to him, whether it was talking to the media or chatting to spectators on his regular tours of the ground. He had time for that, in the hours before the ninth wicket fell and he went in, as he said, just before the roller. He played 53 matches and took 97 wickets at 38.70 – a modest return, but that was only the half of his input. He was a cult figure.