Not even the loud chants of an imam, blessing the County Ground’s marquee beside the boundary in advance of a wedding, could save Worcestershire from a second consecutive defeat or deny Derbyshire a run of three championship wins for the first time since May 2002.
On a remarkable afternoon, Worcestershire, left to make 268 after bowling the home side out for 296, were 73 for three, eight minutes after tea, when Wes Durston, the off spinner, began a sequence — with the imam’s voice now stilled — of four wickets in 22 balls en route to career-best figures of five for 19.
Anxiety surfaced during ninth-wicket resistance that survived 83 balls, but Durston was switched to the City End and, with his second ball, had Jack Shantry held at short leg.
In a match of imaginative captaincy, Wayne Madsen, who made 98 earlier, prepared to move Durston again but Chesney Hughes, in his first bowl, hit Mitchell McClenaghan’s stumps with his fourth ball as the New Zealand swing bowler aimed a mighty slog.
Victory thus came with 62 balls to spare. Worcestershire, promotion pace-setters all season, should still go up but, in an exceptional worst case, would need 22 points from their last two games. The key loss was their captain, Daryl Mitchell, who, having bedded in for 70 balls to make 15, swept at the next and top-edged to the deep, giving Durston his first scalp.
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Durston seized it irresistibly on a pitch now turning and occasionally bouncing. Only Tom Kohler-Cadmore, with 29, exceeded his captain’s score as the side plummetted to 97 for eight and 129 all out. Earlier, Derbyshire, charging towards an intended declaration, had lost five wickets of their own in the 34 balls straight after lunch, including Madsen, ninth out, when he played on, cutting, to give McClenaghan his first five-wicket haul on British soil. It mattered not.