Durham CEO Bostock 'perplexed' by club's relegation

Durham have been relegated from Division One through on-field performance for the first time since 2000

Durham chief executive Tim Bostock says he is "perplexed" by how they ended up getting relegated into Division Two of the County Championship.

Needing only a draw on the final day away to Yorkshire to secure their status after Hampshire had been beaten by Surrey that morning, Durham were skittled out for 85 in only 44.5 overs to finish one point below Hampshire.

Having worked so hard to finally return to the top-flight with promotion in 2023, their stay at the top has lasted only two years.

And having been expected to be challenging Surrey and eventual champions Nottinghamshire for the title, the red-ball season unravelled for the north east county.

"It's not a position we honestly expected to be in," Bostock told BBC Look North.

"To find ourselves in a relegation battle and then to fade away as badly as we did is one, disappointing, and two, perplexing, to be perfectly honest."

Durham finished fifth in 2024 in their first season back in the top-flight after seven years in Division Two.

With the additions of batters Emilio Gay and Will Rhodes and seamer Sam Conners, Bostock says the belief was that a squad good enough to compete for the title had been assembled.

Yet Durham were on the back foot immediately as they lost their first two games. They won two of their next four, but then did not win any of their last eight, culminating in the ignominious innings defeat at Headingley.

When the county was last relegated in 2016, it was on the back of financial issues, but now it is on a much more stable footing.

The challenge then is a cricketing one for Bostock and the rest of the management team, including director of cricket Marcus North and head coach Ryan Campbell, who signed a new contract last month, to get promoted at the first attempt.

'We'll bounce back'

"If we don't get promoted next year, we have some players coming to the end of their contracts and quite rightly, given their ages and aspirations to play for England, they want to be playing Division One cricket," said Bostock.

"There is a risk that if they stay in Division Two for an extended period - and there are no guarantees as Lancashire couldn't get up this year with all their financial resources - you will lose some of these players. But those are the same players that meant we got relegated.

"So they will want to put it right. So I'm confident we'll get back up.

"I am completely perplexed as to how we've got ourselves in this position but it happens in sport.

"Next season we'll come back strong. I wouldn't swap our squad, we built our squad for five years and we're only a year into it and I think we'll bounce back."