SKIPPER Daryl Mitchell hailed "an incredible effort" as Worcestershire kept their Specsavers County Championship promotion hopes alive with a record-breaking win over Northamptonshire.

Mitchell led from the front with his second hundred of the Division Two game as the County reached a 401 target in 79 overs with six balls and two wickets to spare.

It was the County's highest total batting last to win at New Road as a hundred from Joe Clarke and other important knocks from Ross Whiteley, Ben Cox and Joe Leach helped them over the finishing line.

Mitchell said: "Amazing, wasn't it? It was obviously a massive chase. We didn't have a leg to stand on with the negotiations.

"Obviously, Northants probably deserved to have the advantage in the chase really. They wanted the 400 off 80 and we thought, 'Why not? Let's have a go, we've got nothing to lose really'.

"With Essex winning, we needed those points and we played fantastically well. What a chase and what a pitch Tim Packwood has produced.

"It was perfect. It could have gone either way at the end. It was definitely a bowl first wicket as well, which was nice to be proven right in the end.

"I've got a bit of stick on Twitter, maybe justifiably, but the three positive results at New Road have been from chases on day four and that certainly came into the reckoning.

"They played the better cricket for the first day and a half, it zipped around a bit on the third day and they bowled pretty well and could have got more wickets than they did.

"Credit to them. They wanted to win the game as well and they had the slight advantage in the chase at the start but fortunately we managed to overcome that and to knock 400 off in 79 overs is an incredible effort."

Mitchell stressed the importance of Worcestershire having such a lengthy batting line-up.

He said: "We bat all the way down. Shants (Jack Shantry) is at number 10 with a couple of first-class hundreds and it shows the quality of your batters.

"You have got your Leachys, Barnys (Ed Barnard) and Shants down there but it's also about the mentality of them.

"They are quite strong characters and all believe they can win and showed a lot of spirit there to get us over the line and handled it brilliantly well."

Mitchell scored two hundreds in a game for the third time in his career.

He said: "I got a lot of confidence from the way I played in the first innings and I've just gone out there and batted, same as I have done all year and you get two hundreds.

"That's just cricket. If you look back over my career, I've had these patches. It is the third time I've got two hundreds in a game and hopefully I can keep that going for the last three matches."

Clarke completed 1,000 first-class runs in his first full season of senior cricket and clearly thrives on pressure situations.

He also scored a crucial ton when the County chased down over 300 to defeat Leicestershire at New Road earlier in the summer.

Mitchell said: "He's a great talent. I can guarantee it won't be the last time he goes past 1,000 runs, that's for sure!"