Durham's charge: top, unbeaten - and Stokes for the run-in?

Seven rounds into the Championship season, Durham sit top of Division Two with four wins, no defeats and a lead worth defending. And with Ben Stokes calling time on England duty and talking warmly about a return to his county, the run-in could yet have a very familiar figure in the middle of it. Time for a proper catch-up.

Well, it looked like too good a position to pass up, so I'm going to have a go at getting the site back up and running!

The table makes pleasant reading. After seven rounds of Championship cricket, Durham top Division Two on 126 points - four wins, three draws, no defeats - with Northamptonshire back on 108 and Kent a further twelve adrift. The only unbeaten side in the division, and it is not a fluke of the fixture list: the cricket has matched the table.

How they got here

The batting has led the way. David Bedingham's unbeaten hundred against Northamptonshire was the innings of the campaign so far, an unbroken stand of 189 with Colin Ackermann that turned a contest into a statement against the side best placed to chase Durham down. Alex Lees has led from the front as captain, and the top order has been giving the bowlers scores to work with all season.

That Northamptonshire match carried a subplot nobody clocked at the time. Among those turning out in Durham colours for two days was one B.A. Stokes - and by his own account, he rather enjoyed himself.

Stokes, unshackled

The news that stopped English cricket in its tracks came on 28 June: Ben Stokes, England's Test captain, retiring from international cricket with immediate effect. The reasons, he said, could wait; burnout was the word that followed him out the door. Whatever the full story, the international game's loss looks a great deal like Durham's gain.

Stokes has been talking about his boyhood county in terms that should make everyone at the Riverside sit up. Those two days against Northamptonshire, he said, gave him 'a new lease of life'. And then this, on what county cricket offers that the England bubble no longer did: 'I can just go out and play for Durham and play the game, and if I've had a good day or if I've had a bad day, I can just go home, have a bit of dinner and then rock up the next day.'

That is not a man going through the motions. That is a man who sounds genuinely happy at the prospect. The club are understandably careful about promising anything - Stokes's exact plans have not been confirmed - but the reporting points one way: Durham expect to see him at some stage this season, quite possibly for the business end of the promotion push. A fit, free and unburdened Stokes, with a point to prove and nothing to manage but the next day's play, parachuted into a title run-in. There are worse problems for a captain to have.

The rest of the arsenal

Stokes is not the only England name on the books, either. Mark Wood, Brydon Carse and Matthew Potts are all Durham men, and while international calls and the typical run of injuries mean the club sees less of them than it would like, every release adds a frightening dimension to an attack that has already done its job all season. If even one of them joins Stokes for the run-in, Durham's last-day bowling options will be the envy of the division.

The Blast, and what comes next

The T20 Blast group stage reaches its climax this month, with Durham scrapping in a typically tight North Group. But nobody at the Riverside will pretend the white ball is the main event this year. The prize is promotion - ideally as champions - and the second half of the Championship season is where leads like this one are either cashed in or handed back.

There is a long way to go - seven rounds down means half the job at most - and Durham supporters have seen enough summers turn to know better than to plan the parade in July. But top of the table, unbeaten, the division's form batting line-up, an attack that gets deeper every time an England player comes home, and the small matter of the country's greatest modern cricketer possibly seeing out the season in Durham colours? That is a position every other side in Division Two would swap for. The run-in starts now.