THERE have been some rumblings in Yorkshire about the Durham upstarts, but justice will be done when Paul Collingwood's men clinch their third title in six seasons.

In many ways it would be fitting for Yorkshire to be champions in their 150th year, but not if they don't uphold the traditions and integrity of the game.

They resorted to joke cricket on Saturday and it was all the worse because it was highly questionable whether it offered their best route to victory.

It seems they learnt nothing from Durham's patient, pressure-building cricket which beat the Tykes at Scarborough and finally forced Derbyshire to crack.

At the start of play on Saturday, Yorkshire seemed more likely to win than Durham with their match situation looking very similar to the one at Scarborough.

On that occasion Yorkshire went into the last day with only one second innings wicket down and the scores roughly level.

At Hove they had already taken two Sussex wickets fairly quickly on the third evening and if they had picked up two more early on the final morning the door would have been wide open. Sussex had nothing to play for.

Yet Andrew Gale offered the pathetic excuse that had they not taken two wickets in the first hour the match would have petered out into a draw.

He should have been thinking the opposite.

He then inflicted two hours of dross on the spectators, handing an easy century to Rory Hamilton-Brown, who scarcely knew where his next run was coming from.

The weather won in the end, but had Yorkshire backed their bowlers to blast out Sussex as Durham did Derbyshire they might have beaten the rain.

At the start of play it looked as though the gap could come down to one and a half points, which would have been good for the competition. At 27.5 points it's now a one-horse race.