Leaders Worcestershire will require a maximum of 11 points from their final Specsavers County Championship clash with visiting Durham to guarantee promotion.
Skipper Joe Leach’s side are on 216 points – 38 points clear of third placed Northamptonshire who have a game in hand and take on second placed Nottinghamshire next week at Wantage Road.
If Northants – over whom Worcestershire have completed the double this season – manage to win their final two games with maximum points, the most they can obtain is 226.
Sussex dropped out of contention to overhaul Worcestershire after their defeat against Derbyshire at Hove and the same applied to Kent following their draw with Gloucestershire.
Leach said: “It all seems pretty rosey at the moment. You look at the scorecards around the country and the ramnifications for promotion.
“But the good thing is we’ve kept things in our own hands for that last game against Durham.
“It’s hard not to look at the other games. It’s everywhere. You go on twitter and Cricinfo are tweeting every 30 seconds!
“We will know all the permutations and exactly what we need to do, or won’t need to do, come that last game.
“I don’t like talking about other teams and what they do or don’t do. We’ve done our job. We beat Notts last week and got maximum points this game.
“Like I said, it’s in our hands and that’s exactly what we want.”
Since drawing the opening five games of last season, Worcestershire have won 14 of their last 24 Championship matches – an average of one win every 1.71 matches.
LEADING POSITIONS
WORCS Played 13, Won 8, Lost 3, Drawn 2, Bat 42, Bowl 36, Points 216
Notts 12, 7, 1, 4, 39, 36, 207
Northants 12, 7, 3, 2, 28, 33, 178
