Durham Win Promotion to County Championship Division One
Durham beat Middlesex by 93 runs at Chester-le-Street to clinch promotion, as Somerset and Warwickshire keep the title race alive.
Durham are back in Division One of the Rothesay County Championship. They beat Middlesex by 93 runs at Chester-le-Street, wrapping up the match on the final day.
Durham started the day needing eight more wickets, and Kasey Aldridge got the first with the opening ball. Middlesex fought back through an unbeaten hundred from Harry Duke and a half-century from Ben Geddes, but it was not enough. Callum Parkinson took four wickets for 45 runs and Brydon Carse added four of his own to finish the game off.
In Division Two, Gloucestershire beat Lancashire by 105 runs. JT Langridge, on loan from Somerset, removed George Balderson and Noman Ali early, and after Sai Kishore took the wicket of Mitchell Stanley, Langridge came back to dismiss Rocky Flintoff for 65 and complete a five-wicket haul.
Hampshire's troubles continue. A 54-run defeat to Nottinghamshire, built on six wickets for 28 runs from Olly Stone, leaves them bottom of Division One with two matches left. The club, founded in 1863 and playing at the 15,000-capacity Utilita Bowl, has had a difficult year off the field as well as on it — the Guardian reported this week that Hampshire had already sued the ECB over the loss of a 2023 Ashes Test to Yorkshire, a dispute that ended with the board paying the county around £1m in damages.
The title race stays open. Warwickshire beat Glamorgan, winning 391 to 134, and Somerset beat Leicestershire, Somerset, who moved top of the table after routing Leicestershire for 145 last week, have never won the County Championship and still have to get past Yorkshire and Surrey to finish the job.
More on the Glamorgan–Warwickshire match: /en/cricket/event/glamorgan-warwickshire-2026-09-08_347544/.
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