By Ged Scott at the Riverside

Worcestershire's encouraging start to the new season was brought to an abrupt end as they slumped to a two-day defeat to much-improved Durham.

Steve Harmison's hattrick, both his and Durham's first in first-class cricket, brought a faster than an expected finish to a contest that had already been slipping away from Tom Moody's men.

But the main damage had already been done by a century from Harmison's England colleague Paul Collingwood.

And, while Durham's two England men producing the goods for their county on a rare appearance in the competition was a huge factor, Moody only just resisted the temptation to point an explanatory finger at the Riverside wicket.

The Australian remained nobly discreet, but it will have not gone unnoticed at the ECB that 21 wickets fell yesterday, on top of a 12-wicket haul the previous day that might have been more --Durham may not necessarily have heard the last of this second successive County Championship victory.

Instead, Moody was as bighearted in defeat as he was keen to keep feet on the floor after last Saturday's seasonopening win at Derby.

"We've been outplayed on a very difficult wicket," said the director of cricket. "They played to the conditions better and we've come second.

"We lost the game on Wednesday afternoon when we should have bowled them out for under 200, but we bowled both too short at times and too full."

Having started yesterday firmly on the back foot with Durham on 139 for two, Moody did praise his attack for having the heart to bounce back and bowl out the home side for 286.

Durham had been slowed down in the morning session, especially after the loss of Collingwood after his first Championship century since September 2001. But they looked on course for much more when poised in midafternoon on 271 for four.

David Wigley then came on to take three wickets for one run inside 17 balls as the last six Durham men went down for just 15 runs inside nine

overs.

Durham's collapse gave Worcestershire hope of rescuing something from the contest, returning to the crease 115 runs behind. But the suspect nature of a lively track led the visitors to believe that the only way to win would be to hit their way out of trouble - it was soon clear that the plan was not going to work.

Liam Plunkett made the breakthrough in getting both Stephen Peters and Graeme Hick lbw, but then Harmison got in on the act to have Ben Smith caught at second slip before Plunkett trapped Stephen Moore.

Collingwood earned a dubious decision when the luckless Batty suffered the 11th lbw verdict awarded inside two days, despite appearing to have got an inside edge onto his pad.

But, after a valiant 54-run seventh-wicket partnership to delay the inevitable from James Pipe and new signing Chaminda Vaas, Harmison was about to bring the curtain down in devastating style.

After taking out Pipe's middle stump, he produced a superb yorker to get Matt Mason and then beat David Wigley for pace to claim a rare all clean- bowled hat-trick.

He did have one at Trent Bridge last year for England, which "possibly shaded this one", Harmison said diplomatically. But it was still quite a return to county cricket for a man who did not make a single appearance for Durham last summer.

Worcestershire's bowlers at least made Durham work to get the 32 they needed to win. That was some consolation for Moody, on a day when he discovered that Worcestershire's other new overseas signing, Zander De Bruyn, will not be here for another week, that two such quality performers had proved the difference between the two sides.

"This is not an absolute disaster," he said. "Durham are a good side well led by Mike Hussey who had their two England men playing and in good form.

"The ball Harmison bowled to get Mason would have got a top-order batsman and Collingwood batted well.

"We bowled too short but you've still got to put them away and he did it very effectively. He took the momentum from us and set up their win."

DURHAM v WORCESTERSHIRE

RIVERSIDE (Worcestershire won toss): Durham (19pts) beat Worcestershire (3pts) by seven wickets. Overnight: Worcestershire 171 (M Davies 6-32), Durham 139-2 (P D Collingwood 88 no).

DURHAM - First innings cont.

P D Collingwood c Pipe b Batty . . . .129 G J Muchall c Pipe b Sheriyar . . . . . .38 D M Benkenstein lbw b Vaas . . . . . . .38 N Peng lbw b Mason . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 G R Breese lbw b Wigley . . . . . . . . . .10 P Mustard b Vaas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 L E Plunkett b Wigley . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0 M Davies c Pipe b Wigley . . . . . . . . . . .1 S J Harmison not out . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0 Extras (lb4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

_____ Total (105.5 overs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .286 Fall of wickets (cont.): 3-187, 4-223, 5-271, 6-275, 7-282, 8-282, 9-286. Bowling: Vaas 26-6-65-3; Mason 29-12-65-1; Wigley 10.5-1-39-3; Sheriyar 20-5-62-2; Batty 20-6-51-1.

WORCESTERSHIRE - Second innings S D Peters lbw b Plunkett . . . . . . . . . . .9 S C Moore lbw b Plunkett . . . . . . . . . .28 G A Hick lbw b Plunkett . . . . . . . . . . . .6 B F Smith c Collingwood b Harmison .3 V S Solanki c Collingwood b Davies . .8 G J Batty lbw b Collingwood . . . . . . .15 D J Pipe b Harmison . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 W P U Vaas not out . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 M S Mason b Harmison . . . . . . . . . . . .0 D H Wigley b Harmison . . . . . . . . . . . .0 A Sheriyar b Harmison . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Extras (lb5 nb2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

_____ Total (33.4 overs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146 Fall of wickets: 1-23, 2-37, 3-44, 4-54, 5-72, 6-78, 7-132, 8-132, 9-132. Bowling: Harmison 13.4-2-61-5; Plunkett 11-3-25-3; Davies 6-0-33-1; Collingwood 3-0-22-1.

DURHAM - Second innings

M E K Hussey lbw b Mason . . . . . . . .15 J J B Lewis not out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 P D Collingwood lbw b Mason . . . . . . .4 G J Muchall c Batty b Wigley . . . . . . . .1 D M Benkenstein not out . . . . . . . . . . .1 Extras (lb2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

_____ Total (three wickets, 13 overs) . . . . . .32 Fall of wickets: 1-20, 2-24, 3-27.

Did not bat: N Peng, G R Breese, P Mustard, L E Plunkett, S J Harmison, M Davies.

Bowling: Mason 5-1-12-2; Wigley 6-0-15-1; Sheriyar 2-0-3-0.

Umpires: P J Hartley and J W Holder.