Leicestershire 297 (Horton 88, Palladino 4-64) and 133 for 4 beat Derbyshire 245 (Madsen 80, Parkinson 3-50) and 184 (Critchley 86, Abbas 6-54) by six wickets
Scorecard
The international class of Mohammad Abbas was too much for Derbyshire despite a rousing innings from Matt Critchley as Leicestershire celebrated a six-wicket victory on day three of the floodlit Division Two match at Derby.
The Pakistan pace bowler took 6 for 54, including the wicket of Critchley who was last to go for 86 from 124 balls as Derbyshire were bowled out for 184.
That left Leicestershire with a modest target of 133 and 58 from Colin Ackermann backed up by 48 from skipper Paul Horton sealed a 21 point win with more than 23 overs to spare.
Horton said of the Foxes' third win in five: "We're really happy to get over the line. We've played a lot of solid first-class cricket this season and the two games we lost we should have won so to come back after dominating but sadly losing a fixture and step up a day later was a great effort."
Leicestershire's two defeats in this sequence were astonishing. They enforced the follow-on against Durham at Chester-le-Street and lost - then chose not to enforce it again against Middlesex at Grace Road and lost that one too.
Derbyshire had gone into another hot day nine runs behind and they lost skipper Billy Godleman to the third delivery as Abbas swung one in to shatter his stumps.
Alex Hughes was badly missed by Lewis Hill off Ben Raine but the wicketkeeper made amends by taking a diving catch to remove him when he drove at a wide ball from Abbas who then saw Mark Cosgrove put down Daryn Smit at second slip in the same over.
Smit survived for another 10 overs before he got an inside edge off Raine into his stumps and after Critchley completed a deserved 50 from 71 balls, Hardus Viljoen swung Callum Parkinson to long-on with Derbyshire only 79 ahead.
Tony Palladino demonstrated the application Derbyshire required by batting for 10 overs until Raine bowled him off an inside edge but Critchley made sure they would have something to defend by driving consecutive balls from Raine for a four and a six.
Abbas bowled Olivier with a full-length ball and Critchley's excellent innings ended when he miscued a pull trying to keep the strike and lobbed a catch to mid-on.
That left Leicestershire with 53 overs to chase down the runs but they lost Sam Evans in the second over when he edged Viljoen to second slip with three on the board.
Another couple of wickets then would have set nerves jangling in the visiting dressing room but Horton again batted soundly while Ackermann unleashed some powerful drives to cut the target to 46 at tea.
Ackermann was caught behind driving at Duanne Olivier, Cosgrove edged a cut at Viljoen and although Horton was lbw with four needed, he had done enough to seal a third win in four matches.
