IT took Durham's bowlers little more than an hour to seal victory over Worcestershire on the fourth day of the two side's LV County Champion-ship Division One opener at New Road on Saturday.

Even the most ardent - and optimistic - Worcestershire fans would not have held out much hope of taking anything from the game and that proved to be the case as Steve Harmison and Callum Thorp quickly snaffled the remaining four wickets they needed for victory.

New Road director of cricket Steve Rhodes blamed the defeat on his side's sluggish start to the match, but wasn't totally downcast by the result, insisting there is plenty more to come from his players.

He said: "I think the first innings killed us - we were too slow getting out of the traps. They controlled us in the first innings then dominated the game.

"We can't dominate and play the style of cricket we want to play if we don't start well.

"We simply didn't apply ourselves particularly well with the ball or the bat in the first innings which was disappointing, but I was pleased with some of the strong points that came through in the second innings.

"We showed a lot of fight - we fought pretty hard with the bat and the ball in the second innings and so I am taking some positives into the next round of matches in this competition."

Rhodes'' men started the day with all-rounders Gareth Bat-ty and Roger Sillence at the crease and despite the former starting brightly and moving on to 47 with several stylish boundaries, he fell foul of the Harmison brothers.

Just one ball after edging uppishly through the vacant fourth slip area to the third man boundary, the former England off-spinner attempted a similar shot only to give Ben Harmison catching practice at gully and complete the his elder sibling's five-wicket haul.

Australian Thorp then took over the wicket-taking duties by dismissing the last three Worcestershire batsmen to seal the 20-point result.

Having executed a glorious cover drive, Sillence played across the line of the next ball, missed it and was plumb in front of his stumps. Kabir Ali then reached 19 with a series of sumptuous off-side drives, but was then also trapped lbw by Thorp.

Doug Bollinger didn't delay the agony for too long, as he was squared up by Thorp and edged to Gareth Breese at first slip.