Thursday 15 September 2016 19:16, UK
Essex's players set off to celebrate their Division Two title success despite suffering only their third Specsavers County Championship defeat of the summer.
Promotion having been sealed on Tuesday when they garnered the five bonus points required to put them in an unassailable position, they found Michael Hogan in party-pooping mood with five wickets for 45 to leave Essex 11 runs short of victory.
It was the Australian's second five-wicket haul in successive games, taking him to 44 Championship wickets for the season. He was well supported by the parsimonious Timm van der Gugten, who claimed 4-56 from 29.5 overs and ended Essex's obdurate last-wicket partnership with 19 balls to spare.
At one point, Varun Chopra looked as if he might carry Essex to a seventh win on his own when he rattled up 79. His seventh Championship score in excess of fifty this season - the other six were for Warwickshire - came from 128 balls with 10 fours.
But with wickets falling all around him, and no one sticking around long after he had gone, Essex were always ahead of the rate but without enough men to see them over the line.
Ben Sanderson took a career-best 8-73 as Northamptonshire bowled out Gloucestershire for 327 to sign off their season with a 114-run win.
Needing 442 to win, Gloucestershire started day four on 35-2 but having lost Liam Norwell early, a century stand between Chris Dent (58) and George Hankins gave them hope.
Sanderson then removed Dent and Hamish Marshall in the space of three balls before another strong stand, this time between Hankins and Phil Mustard.
The 135-run partnership was broken by Sanderson as he bowled Hankins (116), shortly after the 19-year-old had reached his maiden first-class ton. That broke the back of the Gloucestershire innings and Mustard was the last man out having made 79.
Mark Cosgrove's courageous century and a defiant rearguard action from Rob Sayer and Richard Jones earned Leicestershire a draw and denied Derbyshire a first championship win of the season in the Division Two match at Derby.
The Leicestershire skipper defied the pain of a damaged left hand to score 110 but looked destined to finish on the losing side when his team slipped to 242-8, chasing 347, with 23 overs left.
But Sayer and Jones, who batted with a runner, denied Derbyshire - who used seven bowlers - to steer Leicestershire to 301-8.
Any prospect of a Leicestershire victory had looked remote since Tony Palladino struck twice in the first three overs of a day which began with the ground shrouded in mist with the floodlights on.
