This could be fascinating.

Sunny conditions at Lord's at the moment but there's quite a high chance of rain later this afternoon.

Josh de Caires will bowl the first ball of the afternoon session to Miles Hammond.

A huge session for Kent.

If they are still batting at tea they will almost certainly have saved this match and kept their Division One survival hopes alive - with Lancs and Notts' big defeats.

Those results mean Kent will not go down today.

Jack Leaning defends Kyle Abbott's first ball after lunch.

Division One

• Kent 207 & 145-5 v Hampshire 403 (Kent trail by 51 with five wickets in hand)
• Somerset 317 & 224 v Surrey 321 & 18-0 (Surrey require 203 more to win)
• Worcestershire 307 v Warwickshire 128 & 246-3

Results

• Durham (573-9 dec) beat Lancashire (228 & 282) by an innings and 63 runs
• Essex (457) beat Nottinghamshire (93 & 281) by an innings and 83 runs

Division Two

• Middlesex 377 & 165 v Gloucestershire 309-9 dec & 101-3 (Glos need 133 more to win)

Results

• Leicestershire (98 & 209) lost to Yorkshire (379) by an innings and 72 runs

• Northamptonshire (219 & 211) beat Derbyshire (165 & 132) by 133 runs
• Sussex (491) beat Glamorgan (186 & 218) by an innings and 87 runs

Martin Emmerson
BBC Radio Newcastle

Image source, Getty Images

We weren't sure which way this one was going to go this morning. Could Lancashire frustrate Durham on a benign pitch and bat well into the afternoon, or would they collapse like a pack of cards?

Well, it was the latter as Matty Potts ran through them, taking a career-best 9-68 to finish with 12-126 in the game, his second best match figures.

The tone was set when he had George Balderson LBW in the second over for 16. He followed that with three wickets in the space of four balls nine overs later, as Venkatesh Iyer was bowled for 28, while Tom Hartley and Tom Bailey got ducks two balls apart.

The final pairing added 61 runs before Potts returned to the attack - and armed with the new ball - got debutant Anderson Phillip for 41, LBW, with the second delivery of the over.

Durham are now safe. That's their third innings win of the season and the second in a row here.

Lancashire are in a mess. They are mired in the relegation scrap and have lost three in a row by an innings for the first time since 1907. It's the first time they have also lost four by an innings in the same championship season.

A little light rain at Worcester.

The covers are on.

But the players are not due back on again for another 10 minutes or so yet.

And, mercifully, it seems to have stopped again, almost as soon as it had started.

Anthony Gibson
BBC Radio Somerset

Somerset's injured hero, Tom Banton, added a further brave and no doubt painful 21 runs to his overnight tally before being bowled by Shakib al Hasan to give the Bangladesh slow left-armer figures of 5-96.

That meant that Surrey would need 221 in a minimum of 76 overs for a win and another huge step towards a third successive County Championship.

Rory Burns and Dom Sibley have started cautiously, but there have been encouraging signs of bounce and turn for Somerset's spin twins, Jack Leach and Archie Vaughan, as the effects of the heavy roller have begun to wear off.

Still anyone's game.

Farhan Ahmed is capable against exceptional pace as well as spin.

He navigates three balls from Sam Cook before cutting one for a couple and then picking a slower ball and taking a single. He's up to six.

In what will be a defeat for Notts, this is a great glorified net to add to his experience for when it really will matter.

Kyle Verreynne has a lot of trust in 16-year-old Farhan Ahmed.

He has taken the single early in the over a couple of times now to expose the youngster to Simon Harmer.

Ahmed has done very well to survive in back-to-back overs. Can Notts force an afternoon session?

Farhan Ahmed scuffs one into the off side and that is his maiden first-class run.

From small acorns and all that.

Matt Potts comes back into the attack and finishes the job in style for Durham with 9-68 in this innings and 3-58 in the first.

He's taken every wicket to fall in the session.

Anderson Phillip is pinned LBW defending for 41!

Lancashire remain firmly in the relegation zone, irrespective of the impending Notts defeat by Essex at Chelmsford.

Lancashire have lost by an innings three times in a row - and four times in a season for the first time in their cricketing history.

Aside from a brilliant spell of bowling from Potts, hats off to David Bedingham, who stroked a brilliant 279, breaking the batting record for Durham held by Martin Love for two decades and also Colin Ackermann who made 186.

James Bracey takes Gloucestershire to 100 in the 29th over just before lunch with a front-footed push into point off Toby Roland-Jones.

He's 23 not out and Miles Hammond has an unbeaten 36.

Conditions remain encouraging for seam bowling and Middlesex will be buoyed by the loss of both openers cheaply this morning, both falling to some superbly directed seam bowling from Ryan Higgins.

The third wicket to fall was Ollie Price, caught on the drive at first slip by Sam Robson off the bowling of Tom Helm.

Sam Cook rattles into Farhan Ahmed's pads.

The finger stays down in a stay of execution.

A little too high but the end is very much nigh.

Ged Scott
BBC Sport at Worcester

It's lunchtime in Worcestershire.

Will Rhodes walks off to a decent ripple of applause on 121 - his third century of the season. And, if he makes a further 43 more, he will become the second Warwickshire player in this match after Alex Davies, his predecessor as Bears captain, to reach 1,000 runs for the season.

Hamza Shaikh has made a dogged 27 off 86 balls. And Warwickshire now lead by 65.

With no wickets taken in the session - and seven more to fall, this game is surely only heading one way.

It has also now gone very quiet in the New Road pressbox - but that may be more to do with the fact that the Pears catering team have just served up a splendid offering of sausage roll, beans and wedges.

Image source, Rex Features

Surrey openers Dom Sibley and Rory Burns safely navigate the first 13 overs as they go in for lunch.

They need a further 203 runs from the final two sessions of this beautifully-poised match. Somerset need all 10 wickets.

But there was real hope for the hosts in those final handful of overs before lunch with Jack Leach beginning to work his magic.

Time for a well-earned sarnie.

A couple of fours for Tom Aspinwall bring up a 50 partnersip for the 10th wicket with Anderson Phillip in 61 balls.

A bit of light entertainment for Lancashire fans after a horrid morning.

One ball is lofted down the ground, almost taking out the umpire on the way to the rope and the next boundary is swept behind square.

Four more via a superbly timed sweep.

Five wickets was probably above Hampshire's expectations.

Kent are still 51 runs behind and need a lot of fight in the final two sessions of this match to avoid defeat.

Toby Roland-Jones is desperately close to an outside edge as James Bracey follows one outside off but no wicket for the Middlesex captain so far today.

Miles Hammond pushes Josh de Caires down the ground on the back foot for two and blocks the last ball of the over to long off.