YORKSHIRE were today applying the finishing touches to their season and still basking in the glow of their spectacular Championship achievement of bringing cricket's greatest domestic prize back home after an absence of 33 years.

But even as cricket coffins were being locked up and stored away, the players were biting their nails and looking nervously ahead to tomorrow's final round of matches in Division One of the Norwich Union League.

Yorkshire's programme ended with the 70-run win over Gloucestershire Gladiators at Scarborough on Monday, a victory which stopped Phoenix instantly being consumed in their own flames and reincarnated in Division Two.

Now their fate is out of their own control and in the hands of others but the odds are stacked in favour of Yorkshire remaining in the top division.

Nottinghamshire Outlaws, Somerset Sabres and Gloucestershire must all notch up wins tomorrow to send Yorkshire down - and such a sequence of events is unlikely to happen.

Out-of-form Notts are favourites to be toppled because they take on Leicestershire at Trent Bridge and the Foxes will be going flat out for the victory which will see them crowned as champions.

Sabres should rattle Northants and make sure of their own survival but Gloucestershire could receive a mauling from Surrey Lions who have re-discovered their form too late to avoid going down.

Darren Lehmann and Darren Gough both paid their on-the-field farewells to Yorkshire on Monday and both contributed substantially to the win which kept Yorkshire afloat on the night.

It was a day of double celebration for the incomparable Lehmann whose innings of 69 gave him a season's aggregate in the competition of 753 runs at an average of 53.78.

No Yorkshire batsman has ever enjoyed such a fruitful season in county league cricket and Lehmann became the top man after going beyond the 704 scored by fellow countryman Michael Bevan in 1995.

Lehmann has been in phenomenal one-day form at Scarborough this summer with 363 of his 753 runs coming in just three innings at North Marine Road.

He began by rapping out 103 against Leicestershire - curiously, his first century in a coloured clothing match - and he followed this up with his epic 191 against Nottinghamshire, the biggest score ever recorded in any one-day game by a Yorkshire batsman.

His 69 against Gloucestershire Gladiators was a much more subdued affair but it was probably the most important knock of the three because without it Yorkshire would have been dead and buried.

While Lehmann was totting up the runs, Richard Blakey was in his own quieter style movingly steadily towards a milestone which only two other batsmen have reached in Yorkshire's history.

When Blakey had made six of his 52 runs, he reached 5,000 runs in county league cricket to join Geoff Boycott and David Byas.

Only the Three Bs have gone so far, Boycott finishing his career with 5,051 runs which is five runs more than Blakey has scored.

The present captain leads the way with 5,352 runs.

Lehmann, by the way, has rapped out 2,425 runs in four seasons with Yorkshire and it is interesting to speculate on what his total would stand at now if he had served the White Rose county as long as either Byas or Blakey.

Yorkshire fans have been hugely entertained by Lehmann this season and many fans felt slightly aggrieved that he decided to put his feet up for the last two Championship matches, so denying them the chance of one final glimpse of his talents against Essex at Scarborough over the past few days.

I can undestand both points of view, but perhaps the wisest course of action for Lehmann to have taken would be a compromise - take a break at The Oval and return for a fond farewell at Scarborough.