SOMERSET director of cricket Matt Maynard admitted his side ‘didn’t execute their skills for long enough’ after a crushing seven-wicket defeat to Durham inside three days.

A blistering spell from Chris Rushworth on the morning of day three reduced Somerset to 91-8 in their second innings, before a ninth wicket partnership of 99 between Pete Trego (79) and Abdur Rehman (55no) gave the innings an element of respectability.

But Durham cruised to their target of 150 for the loss of just three wickets, thanks mainly to an unbeaten half-century from Scott Borthwick, to condemn Maynard’s side to a heavy defeat in their opening LVCC fixture of the season.

Matt Maynard told Somerset’s official website afterwards: “We didn’t execute our skills for long enough in this game.

“We had a great partnership going into the middle session on the first day to put us into a good position but then we lost five wickets for 25 runs, so rather than getting to our target of 450 we had to settle for 300.

“When we bowled we did some very good things as a unit but didn’t sustain it for long enough.

“The Durham spell last night from Onions and Rushworth just showed what you had to do on that wicket- get at the batsman all the time and be really disciplined- they set the standard.

“However we weren’t in the game for long enough and didn’t sustain our pressure.

“Those four wickets last night hurt us, and then a couple of early ones this morning as well.

“Had we seen off that bowling start by Onions and Rushworth then we knew that we could build which was shown by Pete Trego and Abdur Rehman.”