PHIL Jaques' third century against Durham helped Yorkshire to emerge from the draw at Scarborough with one more point than their visitors on Saturday.

But the cat-and-mouse was rendered almost irrelevant by the generosity of Essex captain Ronnie Irani in setting Somerset a target which they reached comfortably at Colchester.

It means that if Essex are to have any chance of preventing the northern trio from being promoted they have to beat Lancashire at Chelmsford, starting on September 9.

Essex slipped to fourth yesterday, when Lancashire's win against Worcestershire put them only six points behind Durham.

With two games left for both counties, Durham are now 19 points clear of Essex and Yorkshire lead Irani's men by 5.5 points with a game in hand.

So, while it was disappointing that the Scarborough clash was ruined by rain, both teams came out of it better off in the promotion stakes, with Durham coach Martyn Moxon scarcely able to believe what Irani had done.

It seems that, knowing he was desperate for a win in a match also hit by the weather at Colchester, Somerset skipper Ian Blackwell made Irani a take-it-or-leave it offer. He took the bait, leaving Somerset all day to score 289, which they managed by five wickets with 30 overs to spare.

Jaques, who scored two centuries and 81 for Northants against Durham in 2003, made 172 on Saturday as Yorkshire finished with 475 for six in reply to Durham's 414.

It took Jaques' championship tally for the season to 1,359 at an average of 64.71, compared with Durham skipper Mike Hussey's 1,074 at 76.71, as they both prepare to depart for the Australia A tour to Pakistan.

In a full day's play on Saturday, Durham took only four wickets and dropped two catches. Gareth Breese, who has been very safe at third slip, missed Jaques on 34 off the luckless Brad Williams, while Gordon Muchall put down Craig White on nought at mid-wicket off Liam Plunkett.

But Moxon denied Durham were under par because of the match situation, saying: "We have caught well all season, but sometimes they go down and these two have been costly. We were not resigned to the draw because there was still a lot to play for.

"They have all been big games for a while and the one against Derbyshire this week is just another one. Focus is not a problem. Mike Hussey has been a massive player for us, but there is no problem with Paul Collingwood taking over the captaincy and it's fantastic to have a player of Jimmy Maher's quality coming in.

"We want to finish top and we will aim to carry on as we have been and win the last two games."

Maher arrives from Queensland today and will go straight into the side to face Derbyshire at Riverside tomorrow, but the bowling will be Durham's main concern and they have little room for manoeuvre.

Williams, Neil Killeen, Callum Thorp and Gareth Breese were all wicketless at Scarborough, Collingwood taking three, Plunkett two and the other falling to Hussey's brisk medium pace.

The captain took his maiden wicket for Durham by persuading Ian Harvey to top-edge a pull to mid-wicket and even gave Gordon Muchall a bowl as Tim Bresnan and Richard Dawson scored unbeaten half-centuries in the final session.

Hussey collapsed in a fit of laughter when Muchall, bowling at a similar pace to himself, almost bowled Bresnan with a cunningly disguised donkey drop, which may have been the slowest ball ever bowled in first-class cricket.

Durham secured their second bowling point shortly after tea, when Jaques skied an attempted pull off Plunkett to mid-off to make it 365 for six.

All but 50 of Jaques' runs came in boundaries and the feature of his innings was his placement. He was beaten on 99 by Breese with one of the few balls which turned, but then swept his 15th four to reach his century off 162 balls.

His third 50 came off only 55 balls and even after his exit it was still a formality for Yorkshire to collect maximum batting points by reaching 400. They could have declared at that point to avoid any chance of Durham earning another bowling point, but it made no difference as the seventh wicket pair had added 110 when a halt was called at 5.30.

Proceedings ended with a lovely gesture when the players lined up to applaud umpire David Shepherd off the field after his final appearance in the north.

Read more about Durham here.