Nottinghamshire return to red ball cricket on Sunday 31st August (11am) when they play against Durham at the Emirates Durham ICG, Chester-le-Street in a 4-day LV= County Championship match.

This will be Nottinghamshire’s final away Championship match of the summer and they go into it in second place in the table, just 6 points behind Yorkshire.

Notts will finish their programme of matches with two home games (v Yorkshire and Sussex).

Durham, the defending County Champions have endured a tough season and currently sit 8th in the Division One table, although they have a game in hand on Lancashire, who beat them in their last outing and now occupy 7th place.

Head To HeadSince Durham joined the County Championship in 1992 they have contested 29 first class matches against Notts.

Durham hold a slender overall advantage, with 10 wins to Nottinghamshire’s 9. A further 9 matches have been drawn and one match was abandoned without a ball being bowled.

Following Durham’s elevation to the first class ranks Nottinghamshire have enjoyed mixed fortunes on their previous first class visits to the north-east.

In all they have played 14 Championship fixtures away against Durham, although only 13 of them have featured any cricket. The 2008 encounter was completely washed out with not a single ball bowled on any of the four days.Of the other fixtures, Durham have won 6, Notts have also been victorious in 5, with two games ending in draws.

Last TimeLast September Notts were soundly beaten in their last trip to Chester-le-Street in the County Championship. 

With the match being played in the days leading up to their appearance in the Yorkshire Bank 40 Final at Lord’s, perhaps there was an obvious distraction as Notts were bundled out before lunch on the first day for only 78.

Onions, Rushworth and Harrison each took 3 wickets with only Riki Wessels (17) and Chris Read (11) scraping their way into double figures.

Durham were 207-8 at the end of a first day that produced 18 wickets and were soon all out on the second morning for 256. Paul Collingwood was unbeaten on 88 and Andre Adams bagged 4 wickets for the visitors.

Second time around Notts made 246 with Steven Mullaney and David Hussey making half centuries, leaving a victory target of 69.

Harry Gurney picked up a couple of wickets but Durham reached their moderate target in only 17 overs to win on the third afternoon and secure the First Division title.

With an unexpected free day Notts were able to make a leisurely journey down to London where they lifted their own silverware 48 hours later.

HistoryThe first match in the series of fixtures was played in 1993 at the Ropery Lane ground in Chester-le-Street and Nottinghamshire helped themselves to a huge victory inside three days. The winning margin of an innings and 157 runs was largely due to an astonishing turn-around with the bat.??Having been 4-2 two early on, the visitors recovered to post 629, thanks to 130 from Paul Johnson and a career-best innings from Chris Lewis, who made a mammoth 247 and wicket-keeper Bruce French who posted 123. Together they added 301 for the 7th wicket, a county record that still stands. Lewis’ score remains the highest ever recorded by a Nottinghamshire number 6.??Two years later, in the first meeting at the Riverside, it was the hosts who came out on top, with John Morris – later to join the Trent Bridge staff – hitting the only century of the contest. ??A drawn match at Hartlepool in 1997 was ruined by the weather but since then all the other 10 meetings have been played at the Chester-le-Street ground, now a Test match venue in its own right.??Tons from Paul Collingwood and Jonathan Lewis were the foundation for the home team’s success in 1999.
Lewis proved to be a thorn in the Nottinghamshire side when he did it again two years later. His score of 112, plus 149 from Martin Love, chased down a target of 318 on the last day to secure another win, after Paul Johnson and Greg Blewett had reached three figures for the guests. Steve Harmison took 5-100 in Notts’ first innings.??Notts’ win in 2002 was built around a century from Usman Afzaal and they won again in 2004 with Russell Warren scoring a hundred after Charlie Shreck had taken 6-46 with the ball.??In 2009 Durham amassed a colossal total of 648-5 declared in their first innings. Michael Di Venuto and Kyle Coetzer combined with 314 for the first wicket. Di Venuto eventually fell for 219, Coetzer made 109 and there were also hundreds for Dale Benkenstein and Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Notts were made to follow on after Liam Plunkett took 6-85 and eventually succumbed to an innings defeat.?
Three years ago, unusually, Nottinghamshire opened their innings at Durham with two first class debutants.

Handicapped by England Lions call-ups for both Alex Hales and Samit Patel, they gave opportunities to both Karl Turner and Sam Kelsall.  

In the 2012 Trent Bridge fixture between the two sides, Durham were permitted to make an official change to their starting eleven after Graham Onions had been omitted from an England Test at Lord’s. 

Onions arrived at Trent Bridge at lunch on the second day just as Notts were about to begin their first innings. Replacing the unlucky Mitch Claydon, Onions proceeded to dismantle the home side with figures of 9-67 and only had himself to blame for not getting all ten wickets as it was his direct throw that ran out the other batsman, Luke Fletcher.?Played For Them BothSix cricketers have played in first class matches for both Nottinghamshire and Durham. The first to do so was wicketkeeper Chris Scott, who played 63 times for Notts between 1981-1991, then moved north to join Durham for their debut season in the county championship.

Others to have represented the two counties include: Mark Saxelby, Nathan Astle, John Morris, Will Smith and Mark Davies.

StatsHighest Team TotalDurham: 648-5 dec (Riverside 2009)Notts: 629 (Ropery Lane, Chester-le-Street 1993)

Highest Individual Score:Durham: 219 MJ Di Venuto (Riverside 2009)Notts: 247 CC Lewis (Ropery Lane, Chetser-le-Street 1993)

Best Bowling:Durham: 9-67 G Onions (TB 2012)Notts: 6-46 CE Shreck (Riverside 2004)

Hat-tricks -There hasn’t been a hat-trick taken in any first class match between Notts and Durham.

Steven Mullaney has taken 10 first class wickets this season, the best haul of his career.

Samit Patel and Riki Wessels have both passed 1,000 first class runs for the season and are now each within a whisker of achieving the milestone in the County Championship.

Patel has scored 988 First Division runs this season and Wessels is one behind, on 987. Only Yorkshire’s Adam Lyth has reached 1,000 in the top flight.Wessels is the leading 6-hitter in the First Division, with 22. Another Notts batsman, Alex Hales, is a distant second, with 11, with Durham’s John Hastings third, on 10.

Chris Read has claimed 46 wicketkeeping dismissals in the LVCC this season, all caught. Lancs are the only other county in Div One yet to have a stumping.

Did You Know?Amongst the quaint-sounding villages local to Durham’s home ground at Chester-le-Street are the wonderfully-named ‘No Place’ and ‘Pity Me’.

MilestonesMichael Lumb needs 35 more runs to reach 10,000 in first class cricket.

James Franklin has taken 445 first class wickets, Ajmal Shahzad has taken 197 and Luke Fletcher 192.

Andre Adams has taken 344 first class wickets for Nottinghamshire (out of career total of 683) and Samit Patel has taken 192 purely for the county (out of total of 205).

CoverageBBC Radio Nottingham will be providing on-line ball-by-ball coverage, access via the link on the BBC Sport website.