A BATTLING Worcestershire forced their LV= Championship Division One match with Durham into a final day.

However, the New Road side are staring down the barrel of a sixth consecutive defeat as they still trail their visitors first innings total by 99 after closing last night on 271-5 following on after being dismissed in their opening innings for 217.

The day got off to the worse possible start for the County when new signing Adrian Shankar injured his knee during the warm-up and was sent to hospital for an X-ray.

The 26-year-old, who only signed a two-deal with Worcestershire last week, twisted his knee and is now facing a scan on Monday.

County director of cricket Steve Rhodes said: “We are not sure what is going on he’s had an X-ray and he’s got a scan booked for Monday we will know more then.

“He had to be stretchered off so it doesn’t look good, but I wouldn’t like to speculate because he could be OK so we will wait for the scan.

“You sometimes question when luck is going to shine on you and there were some expletives going through my mouth when it happened.”

Worcestershire’s lower order batsmen showed some fighting qualities as they got the County to a first innings 217 with on-loan wicketkeeper Ben Scott hitting a fine 37.

But the New Road side still trailed Durham by 370 runs and the visitors enforced the follow-on.

Vikram Solanki and skipper Moeen Ali hit half-centuries as Worcestershire battled to salvage some pride.