Ben Stokes produced his best bowling figures in nine years at the Seat Unique Riverside on Thursday, taking 6-94 as Worcestershire were bowled out for 448 — and then watched the Pears strike back so hard that Durham closed day three on 161-6, just 178 ahead with four wickets left and a match they had controlled for two days suddenly in the balance.
It was the first five-wicket haul Stokes has taken at his home ground since 2014, and his most productive return with the ball since the 6-22 that put his name on the Lord’s honours board against West Indies in September 2017. Nine years on, at 35 and three months into international retirement, he bowled 24 overs of hostile, unrelenting seam to drag Durham back into an innings that had threatened to run away from them.
Stokes turns back the clock
Worcestershire had reached 270-5 and looked well set to overhaul Durham’s 465. Stokes had other ideas. Bowling in long spells into the Chester-le-Street breeze, he found the movement that had eluded the rest of the attack and worked through the middle and lower order, finishing with 6-94 from a workload no 35-year-old with his injury history should comfortably absorb.
That he can still do it matters beyond this match. Stokes retired from international cricket on 29 June, after the New Zealand series, handing the Test captaincy back to Joe Root and returning to the boyhood club he has never really left. His first red-ball outing since that decision brought two fifties and seven wickets against Northamptonshire. This was the sequel, and a louder one: Durham’s leading all-rounder is not winding down, he is bowling better than he has in the better part of a decade.
He had already contributed with the bat, a fifty from 40 balls in a 105-run stand with Mayank Agarwal, whose 177 from 220 deliveries — the former India opener’s maiden county hundred, reached off 121 balls — was the innings that built Durham’s 465. Agarwal was signed on 31 August as cover for David Bedingham, who returned to South Africa for their red-ball international programme. It is proving a sharp piece of business.
Hose’s hundred and the Pears’ fightback
Worcestershire’s reply was held together by Adam Hose, whose 105 from 239 balls, with 12 boundaries, was only his second first-class century for the club and came after a run of serious injuries. Tom Taylor’s 61 from the lower order, including five fours and two sixes, hauled the visitors to within 17 of Durham’s total and denied the champions-elect the cushion they wanted.
Then came the evening session that changed the game. Matthew Waite removed both openers on his way to 2-37. George O’Connor, a 22-year-old debutant drafted in as an injury replacement, claimed the prize scalp of Stokes for 12 and finished with 2-42. Ben Allison and Taylor — 1-30 — took one apiece, the last of them late enough to leave Durham genuinely uneasy. Kasey Aldridge, 25 not out, and Ollie Robinson, unbeaten on 19, survived to stumps.
“Game on, I think, and a really good last session for us there,” Hose said. “I knew from batting on it for time that if we put the ball in the right areas for long enough there would be chances there. I thought we bowled pretty well as a unit.”
On his century, he added: “I feel like I’ve played quite well the whole season. I just haven’t quite gone on, so it was nice to get there today.”
What it means on day four
Durham’s stakes are reputational rather than existential. Promotion from Division Two was sealed weeks ago — nine wins and no defeats from 12 matches, 230 points, the division won at a canter. Losing here would not undo that, but it would end an unbeaten campaign in the final home fixture of the summer, in front of a crowd that came to watch Stokes.
For Worcestershire, relegated from Division One in 2025 and sixth in the second tier with 133 points, the incentive is different:
- A win over the runaway champions is the strongest possible argument that this squad is closer to promotion form than the table suggests.
- O’Connor’s debut two-for, and the wicket of Stokes in particular, gives a bowling attack short on fit bodies a genuine find heading into 2027.
- Hose’s hundred ends a season of starts without conversions — the kind of breakthrough that reframes a winter.
Everything hinges on the first hour. If Aldridge and Robinson add 80, a target north of 250 on a fourth-day surface at Chester-le-Street will be beyond Worcestershire. If Waite and O’Connor find the same lengths they found on Thursday evening, the Pears could be chasing something under 200 — and Stokes, six wickets or not, will have to bowl again.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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