DURHAM need seven points from their final championship match against Northamptonshire starting at Riverside today to ensure promotion, and the requirement will come down with each point they deny their visitors.
Although they lie sixth, Northants have sneaked into the promotion frame almost unnoticed and Durham have reason to be grateful that rain prevented the Midlanders from completing their fourth win in five games at Taunton on Saturday.
Durham have not won in that time and have seen their lead whittled down from 79 to 38 over Northants, who have two games left and can get to 203 points with two maximum hauls.
Essex can match Durham's current total of 197, but it is inconceivable that the Riverside team will not take something from this match, especially with the weather forecast pointing to a draw.
After his open-top bus ride with the England team in London yesterday Paul Collingwood will be back to captain Durham and coach Martyn Moxon said: "It would cap a fantastic few days for him to lead us to promotion. It has been a brilliant summer both for him and for us.
"The Ashes series has captivated the nation and we've also done well, so it would be the icing on the cake for Paul to lead us to victory this week.
"We have to set out to win the match. We would be asking for trouble to have any other mindset at this stage."
Northants make a habit of coming good in the second half of the season, when conditions favour their spinners.
When they were promoted two years ago under the captaincy of Mike Hussey, off-spinner Jason Brown took seven for 69 in Durham's second innings at Riverside, the best figures recorded by a spinner on the ground.
In those days he had Graeme Swann as his spin partner, but it's now Monty Panesar and it is since the young left-armer came into the team that they have begun to prosper.
At Northampton in June Martin Love scored 49 and 62 against his former county, but in a rain-interrupted match the hosts showed little interest in going for the target Durham set them on the final day and the match was drawn.
Liam Plunkett, who missed that match through injury, needs four wickets to reach 48 and prevent Mark Davies from being Durham's leading wicket-taker for the second successive season.
Durham have added batsman James Lowe and seamer Graham Onions to the squad from their last championship match against Derbyshire.
That means Lowe has been preferred to Gary Pratt, who was also on the open-top bus in London yesterday.
Durham (from): P D Collingwood (capt), J P Maher, G M Scott, G J Muchall, D M Benkenstein, G R Breese, P Mustard, L E Plunkett, C D Thorp, B A Williams, N Killeen, G Onions, J A Lowe.
Read more about Durham here.
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