Durham clinched the LV= Insurance County Championship Division Two title after bowling out Worcestershire shortly before the close of a rain-affected third day at New Road.

With promotion already secured last week without bowling a ball when Leicestershire failed to get a batting point against Sussex, Durham required a maximum of five points to clinch top spot.

The three secured for dismissing Worcestershire for 313, plus the ones dropped by the home side for batting, ensured Durham finished in pole position to be back in Division One for the first time since 2016, when they were relegated over financial issues.

Ben Raine and Bas de Leede finished with three wickets each, while captain Brett D’Oliveira was Worcestershire’s top scorer with 63 off 75 balls.

At the Kia Oval, Ben Foakes and Jamie Overton led a fightback from Division One leaders Surrey against bottom-of-the table Northamptonshire on another rain-affected day.

Title rivals Essex had cut into Surrey’s 18-point lead by taking two more bonus points against Hampshire.

Northamptonshire – who will be relegated if either Middlesex or Kent win – put the pressure on as they reduced Surrey to 79 for six before a spirited response from Foakes and Overton, who made an unbeaten half-century, helped move them on to 158 when bad light and rain ended play early.

Surrey still trail by 199, but a draw still looks the most likely outcome heading into the final day’s play.

At Chelmsford, Hampshire batter Tom Prest scored his maiden Championship century to frustrate title hopefuls Essex despite a five-wicket haul for Simon Harmer.

Prest scored an unbeaten 102 to guide Hampshire past the follow-on score with vital contributions from openers Toby Albert (39), Fletcha Middleton (47), James Vince (46) and Keith Barker (42).

South African Harmer claimed five for 143, but Hampshire ended the day on 322 for eight, now 125 runs adrift and with potential to set up a result on the final day.

Somerset’s Tom Kohler-Cadmore celebrated his England call-up with a savage assault on Kent’s injury-hit bowling attack on day three at Taunton.

Kohler-Cadmore – set to feature in the one-day international series against Ireland – hit eight sixes in a rapid 68 as the hosts extended their first-innings total to 404 for four before rain washed out the last two sessions.

Lewis Goldsworthy marked his first Championship appearance of the season with 122 and Andy Umeed contributed 49 as Somerset increased the pressure on relegation-threatened Kent, who have secured just one bonus point, before play was eventually abandoned at 4.50pm.

At Lord’s, another half-century from Sam Robson helped keep alive relegation-battlers Middlesex’s hopes of a draw on a truncated day three against Warwickshire.

Former England opener Robson made 51 not out as the hosts reached 96 for one in their second innings, still 98 short of making Warwickshire bat again.

Earlier, Will Rhodes completed his ninth first-class hundred, but Danny Briggs fell one short as Warwickshire made a first innings total of 315. Tim Murtagh, in his final game at Lord’s, finished with six for 83.

Lancashire made 225 for six against Nottinghamshire on a rain-shortened day at Emirates Old Trafford in a game steadily heading towards a draw having already lost two days to the weather.

Steven Croft top-scored for the hosts with 45, while Matty Hurst, 20, made an assured unbeaten 35 on debut after openers Keaton Jennings and Luke Wells had posted 84 for the first wicket.

Stephen Mullaney and Asitha Fernando both claimed two wickets apiece for the visitors.

Elsewhere in Division Two, Harry Swindells kept alive Leicestershire’s promotion hopes, top-scoring with 73 in his first appearance of the year in the Foxes’ red-ball team, against Yorkshire at Grace Road.

Swindells, who scored an unbeaten 117 in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup final win over Hampshire, shared a 10th-wicket partnership of 93 with Will Davis (44 not out) as the hosts recovered from 140 for nine to reach 233, a first-innings lead of 78.

In reply, Yorkshire closed 35 runs in front on 113 for one with opener Adam Lyth 51 not out.

Brooke Guest marked his 100th appearance as a wicketkeeper for Derbyshire by taking seven catches against Sussex to equal the county’s record dismissals in an innings.

Sam Conners and Zak Chappell both took four wickets as Sussex were dismissed for 100 before the home side closed on 94 for one, with Luis Reece unbeaten on 50.

Adam Rossington’s century and an unbeaten 83 from Matt Critchley rescued Essex after a false start to their crunch LV= Insurance County Championship clash against Hampshire.

If Essex lose their penultimate game this week, Surrey can retain their Division One crown by beating Northamptonshire and Tom Westley’s side lurched to 132 for five after winning the toss at Chelmsford.

But Rossington, who was averaging 18.8 with the bat this season when he strode to the crease, thumped 10 fours and two sixes, contributing 104 to an important 177-run stand with all-rounder Critchley.

Rossington edged a big swipe late on at Mohammad Abbas, who had earlier castled Sir Alastair Cook for a three-ball duck, but the wicketkeeper’s Essex-best helped his side collect two batting bonus points.

Surrey also scooped a couple of points thanks to their bowlers, chiefly Tom Lawes, who took three for 24 as Northamptonshire slid from 106 for two to 171 for six on a rain-shortened day at the Kia Oval.

There were also wickets for Jordan Clark, Daniel Worrall and Jamie Overton, who gave Surrey a scare after leaving the field in his third over feeling his hip before returning to snare Saif Zaib.

Former India batter Karun Nair went to stumps unbeaten on 51 after Northamptonshire were invited to bat first on a day where only 63.4 overs were possible.

There were four fewer deliveries but a lot more action at Lord’s, where Oliver Hannon-Dalby’s five-wicket haul restricted struggling Middlesex to a paltry 121 before Warwickshire closed on 72 for four.

Middlesex started the day two points above second-bottom Kent and after their batters were put in and floundered in bowler-friendly conditions, the outgoing Tim Murtagh dragged them back into the contest.

The 42-year-old seamer, playing at the home of cricket for the last time prior to his retirement from professional cricket at the end of the season, took three for 17 as Middlesex took one bowling point.

Kent are bidding to move out of the relegation places this week but despite winning the toss, Tom Lammonby’s 109 – his first hundred of the season – put Somerset on top on 214 for two after 53.2 overs.

Arafat Bhuiyan was the only frontline Kent bowler to take a wicket on the opening day while part-timer Daniel Bell-Drummond atoned for dropping Lammonby on 76 by having the opener caught behind at Taunton.

The inclement weather ruined any prospect of play between Lancashire and Nottinghamshire at Emirates Old Trafford while all three Division Two fixtures were heavily impacted by rain.

Sussex, a day on from their 12-point deduction from the England and Wales Cricket Board that has almost certainly ended their promotion hopes, did not get on to the field at Derbyshire.

Leicestershire, fresh from their Metro Bank One-Day Cup victory at the weekend, need a win to stay in the hunt for a top-two finish and with it a place in Division One next year.

They reduced Yorkshire to 155 for nine after bowling first at Grace Road, where Will Davis finished with four for 28 while Finlay Bean top-scored with 40 to go past 1,000 runs for the season.

Second-placed Worcestershire, who began the day 21 points ahead of Leicestershire, reached 104 for one against already-promoted Durham at New Road.

Northamptonshire were all-but relegated from LV= Insurance County Championship Division One following their two-wicket defeat to Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

Warwickshire survived a top-order collapse courtesy of a Ben Sanderson hat-trick to chase down 176 in 60 overs after Northamptonshire declared to try and force victory in the must-win match.

The hosts fell to 24 for five following the hat-trick, but Michael Burgess made an unbeaten 78 and added 70 with Ed Barnard for the sixth wicket before an unbroken ninth-wicket stand of 52 with Olly Hannon-Dalby saw the hosts over the line.

Middlesex secured a draw with Lancashire which boosted their chances of securing their top-flight status next season.

Middlesex were 160 for three with Jack Davies unbeaten on 65, his maiden first-class fifty, and Stevie Eskinazi on 26 not out when the players eventually shook hands at 4.50pm – with Lancashire only batting once in the game after they were dismissed for 413 in the morning.

Kent held on to secure a draw with Nottinghamshire in a thrilling finale at Canterbury.

Joe Clarke struck an unbeaten 141 and Brett Hutton compiled a career-best 84 as the hosts, following on, made 348 to set Kent a victory target of 168.

Asitha Fernando took three quick wickets to help reduce Kent to 59 for five before former Nottinghamshire all-rounder Joey Evison steadied the ship with an unbeaten 13 off 66 balls to keep Steven Mullaney’s side at bay.

Jaydev Unadkat took six wickets to help Sussex boost their promotion chances with just their second win of the season in Division Two with a 15-run victory over Leicestershire.

Indian left-armer Undakat took figures of six for 94 from 32.4 overs and cleaned up the last four wickets in just 31 balls as they bowled out the resilient Foxes for a superb 483 – with Colin Ackermann making 136.

Sussex will visit winless Derbyshire next week before finishing the season at home to Gloucestershire but second-placed Worcestershire still hold an 18-point advantage over them.

Sam Northeast and Eddie Byrom hit centuries to help Glamorgan draw with Yorkshire in Cardiff.

Northeast finished proceedings unbeaten on 166, while Byrom made 101 before he was bowled by Dom Bess and captain Kiran Carlson chipped in with a half-century which saw him pass 1,000 runs in a season for the first time in his career.

Glamorgan picked up their 11th draw in 13 matches this season while Yorkshire remain bottom of the table despite starting the day with a slight chance of claiming an innings victory.

First-class debutant Ed Middleton and Graeme van Buuren produced an unbeaten stand of 77 as Gloucestershire scrambled a draw with fellow strugglers Derbyshire in Bristol.

The pair put on a stubborn seventh-wicket stand to end Derbyshire’s hopes of a first victory of the campaign.

Gloucestershire had slipped to 131 for six in their second innings, holding a narrow lead of 105 with a possible 43 overs left in the day but Middleton’s 39 off 91 balls and Van Buuren’s 48 from 100 saw them to 208 for six at the close as both teams remain winless.

Durham have been promoted to Division One of the LV= Insurance County Championship.

The north-east county do not have a fixture this week, but Leicestershire failed to secure any batting bonus points in their game against Sussex and can no longer reach Durham’s points total.

Durham, who have won the County Championship three times, were relegated from the top flight due to financial issues in 2016 and handed a 48-point deduction from the start of the following season.

They have won six of their 12 fixtures this season under head coach Ryan Campbell, losing only once, and need five points from their remaining two matches to clinch the title.

Durham’s next County Championship game starts next Tuesday at Worcestershire.

Yorkshire have been fined and docked points in two formats over the club’s “extremely serious” misconduct in relation to the racism experienced by former player Azeem Rafiq.

The club were fined £400,000 – £300,000 of which is suspended for two years – and docked 48 County Championship points and four in the T20 Blast from this season’s competitions by an independent Cricket Discipline Commission (CDC) panel after admitting four charges.

Yorkshire released a statement accepting the sanctions. The punishment means Yorkshire drop from sixth to bottom of Division Two in the Championship, all but ending their promotion chances, while they go from fifth to eighth in the North Group of the already-completed 2023 Blast, a competition where they failed to qualify for the knockout stages.

Rafiq initially spoke out in 2020 about the racism and bullying he experienced across two spells at the county, between 2008 and 2014 and between 2016 and 2018. He also gave harrowing testimony about his experiences to the Culture, Media and Sport parliamentary committee in November 2021.

The first charge the county admitted was the mishandling of their response to an independent report prompted by Rafiq’s allegations.

The second related to what the panel found to be the “deliberate” deletion of emails relevant to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) investigation into Yorkshire, the third to their handling of racism complaints more widely and the fourth to a failure to address the “systemic use” of racist and or discriminatory language over a prolonged period, set in the panel findings as being between 2004 and 2021.

“The overall misconduct in this case must be regarded as extremely serious within both the sporting and wider societal contexts,” the CDC panel’s written reasons confirming the sanctions stated.

“The latter of course is not our concern – but the cricketing context is. The gravity lies not just within the nature of the discrimination itself, but because the message must be made clear to all who administer and who play the professional game, and to all those who administer cricket and who play elsewhere, that such conduct is wholly unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

“Complaint is made by Yorkshire that the sanctions which the ECB has asked the panel to consider are more severe than any sanction the CDC has imposed before. Yorkshire are right – in this panel’s experience this is the most serious case in respect of a first-class county which has been brought before the CDC.”

At a sanctions hearing on June 27, Yorkshire had called for any punishments imposed to be suspended. The ECB had called at the same hearing for the CDC to impose a £500,000 fine on Yorkshire, with £350,000 of it suspended.

ECB lawyer Jane Mulcahy said it would be “wholly unproductive” to try to put Yorkshire out of business, with the club having highlighted a £3.5million cash shortfall to members at their annual general meeting back in March, and the need to repay £14.9m to their creditors the Graves Trust.

The panel recognised the “fragile” nature of the club’s finances, but said it would be an “affront” to those who had suffered as a consequence of the breaches Yorkshire had admitted if there was no financial penalty.

On the same day as the sanctions hearing took place, the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) published its damning report which found racism was “entrenched” in the sport.

Regarding the second charge concerning the mass deletion of emails and documents, the panel said it was satisfied the deletions “were both deliberate and were of emails relevant to the investigations being undertaken by both the ECB and internally”.

Yorkshire issued an apology to Rafiq in September 2021, accepting he had been the victim of racial harassment and bullying, but the following month the club said no individual would face disciplinary action over the report’s findings.

The club’s handling of the case led to sponsors deserting in their droves, calls for “heads to roll” at Yorkshire from the then Health Secretary Sajid Javid, and to the ECB withdrawing Yorkshire’s right to host lucrative international matches at Headingley until governance changes were made.

The panel and the ECB recognised the work done to make Yorkshire more inclusive, first by Lord Kamlesh Patel during his time as chair between November 2021 and March of this year, and subsequently by the current leadership.

The panel gave “significant weight” to efforts to remedy past failings but said those changes did not mean sanctions should not be imposed.

“If a company could avoid penalties simply by changing their employees after any wrongdoing, that would undermine the whole premise of corporate responsibility,” the written reasons stated.

“The internal upheavals may amount to some mitigation, albeit brought by the club upon itself, but it cannot render past misconduct incapable of sanction.”

The panel ordered the £100,000 to be paid in equal instalments on January 1, March 1, June 1 and September 1 next year.

Yorkshire accepted the sanctions but said in a statement: “We are disappointed to receive the points deductions which affects players and staff at the club, who were not responsible for the situation.

“They have worked tirelessly on and off the field to rebuild Yorkshire into an inclusive and welcoming club that reflects the communities it serves. Greater clarity over our situation will allow us all now to look ahead.

“There remains much to do, but we have made significant investments to put in place best practice processes and procedures, as well as driving equity, diversity and inclusion through a new framework and taking important steps to improve the matchday experience to encourage greater inclusivity and tackle discrimination.

“We look forward to continued dialogue with the ECB to ensure the financial penalty does not hinder our ongoing commitment to build on the strong foundations that have been laid.”

ECB chief executive Richard Gould added: “These were serious charges relating to racism over a prolonged period.

“There can be no place for racism in our game, and the penalties announced by the Cricket Discipline Commission mark the end of a thorough disciplinary process.

“No one should have to experience what Azeem Rafiq went through in cricket, and we once again thank him for his courage in speaking out.”

Rafiq has been approached for comment.

Dan Lawrence delivered a message to England ahead of the fourth Ashes Test, bludgeoning nine sixes as he recorded a second successive LV= Insurance County Championship hundred for Essex.

After missing out at Headingley last week as England went with an extra bowler following Ollie Pope’s injury, Lawrence, celebrating his 26th birthday, took the attack to Lancashire to rescue Essex from nought for two at Blackpool.

He was out from the final ball of day three but his belligerent 135 off 125 deliveries was his third century of the season and lifted Essex to 292 for eight and a lead of 429 in the Division One clash.

Lawrence is in the squad for next week’s penultimate Test at Emirates Old Trafford and his recent form could give England something to think about as they mull over whether to change a winning XI.

Essex were also bolstered by Doug Bracewell’s unbeaten 61 off 35 balls after earlier bowling Lancashire out for 145, with Sam Cook taking four for 42 while Paul Walter chipped in with three wickets.

Half-centuries from Dom Sibley and Tom Latham carried Division One leaders Surrey to a lead of 156 against Nottinghamshire at the Kia Oval.

Nottinghamshire carved out a 44-run advantage on first innings, largely thanks to 145 from Will Young, whose time at the crease was ended by an excellent agile catch from England discard Ben Foakes.

Surrey captain Rory Burns bagged his second duck of the match but Sibley’s 87 and Latham’s 60, plus 25 from Foakes, carried the hosts to 200 for five at stumps.

Warwickshire recorded an innings-and-46-run win inside three days over Kent, who were all out for 332 second time around at Canterbury, where Oliver Hannon-Dalby collected four for 59.

Felix Organ (97) and Kyle Abbott (89) put on 177 for the ninth wicket for Hampshire, who were asked to follow-on after posting 330 in response to Somerset’s 500. Hampshire closed on 34 for two at Taunton.

Sam Whiteman’s 114 plus 85 not out from Emilio Gay ushered rock-bottom Northamptonshire to 372 for seven and a lead of 314 against fellow strugglers Middlesex at Merchant Taylors’ School.

Matthew Potts took four for 55 as Division Two leaders Durham completed a nine-wicket victory over Gloucestershire at Chester-le-Street.

Potts’ haul included bowling Gloucestershire’s top-three of Ben Charlesworth, Chris Dent and Oliver Price as the visitors were all out for 188, and Durham knocked off a 52-run target in 11.4 overs.

Ben Coad’s five for 33 led to Worcestershire being skittled for 242 in reply to Yorkshire’s 407 at New Road, where the hosts were grateful for nightwatchmen Ben Gibbon and Adam Finch as they ended the day on 22 without loss in their follow-on.

James Coles’ 101 not out steered Sussex from 72 for four to 193 for five and a lead of 188 against Derbyshire, who were earlier all out for 407 after Brooke Guest’s 105 at Hove.

Michael Neser, an outside bet for Australia in Manchester next week, thumped an unbeaten 176 as Glamorgan rallied from 93 for seven to post 403 for nine declared against Leicestershire, who closed on 28 without loss in their rain-hit clash.

West Indies ODI captain Shai Hope has signed to play for the Yorkshire County Cricket Club for the first three games of the LV= Insurance County Championship 2023 season.

The 29-year-old Barbadian’s signing will provide the team with well-needed experience said Yorkshire County Cricket Club Managing Director Darren Gough.

“He is a great signing,” said the former England fast bowler. “He brings so much experience – one thing we are lacking is just a little bit of experience so he just gives us that and comes into the squad for this first game.

“We felt we needed just the one experienced face in and we went for Shai. He has been playing well for the West Indies in one-day matches, he has got a record of playing Test cricket – he had his two hundreds at Headingley before for the West Indies.”

In 2017, Hope became the first player ever to score two centuries in the same first-class match at Headingly while playing the West Indies in a Test Match against England.

Hope, who 23 at the time scored of 147 and 118 not out as the West Indies pulled off a remarkable victory.