Glamorgan might be top of Division Two, but Surrey are coming off an impressive turnaround at Northampton. Furthermore, the Brown Hatters have only lost once to the Welshmen in 15 championship meetings.

Glamorgan, who were 12-1 at the start of the season to win Division Two, owe their lofty position to their bowlers. James Harris is currently their leading wicket-taker with 31 championship victims at a cost of 17.87 runs apiece this summer. Jim Allenby is topping the averages with 23 at an average of 15.86. With David Harrison and slow left-armer Dean Cosker also taking key wickets, Surrey have picked the ideal time to press Younis Khan into action.

With the bat, Gareth Rees (461 championship runs in ten completed innings), James Allenby, Ben Wright and Mark Cosgrove have all been amongst the runs for Glamorgan, while skipper Jamie Dalrymple has also registered a championship ton this term. But the Welshmen have had issues finding someone to come in at number six - Michael Powell has only managed to hit one half century, so his place has been claimed by 21-year-old Tom Maynard.

Usman Afzaal has a better average against Glamorgan than even Mark Ramprakash. Afzaal has taken 998 first-class career runs at an average of 62.37 off the Welshmen, including four hundreds, compared with Ramprakash who averages 52.53, also with four tons. With the ball, Chris Tremlett has enjoyed a fair amount of success against the Dragons - 19 f-c wickets at a cost of 16.84 each.

Steven Davies goes into this contest with 4,974 first-class career runs, while Chris Tremlett has 295 f-c wickets. For Glamorgan, David Harrison enters this game with 248 f-c career wickets.

Younis Khan looks set to make his Surrey debut, with Matthew Spriegel making way, and will almost certainly open the batting with Arun Harinath. Gareth Batty (hamstring), Stuart Meaker (left ankle) and Chris Tremlett (right shoulder) are all fit and available again. Two of them will take the place of Tom Jewell, who deputised at Northampton, and Andre Nel, who is nursing a sore glute ahead of the Twenty20's - sorry, is serving the first of the two-match ban served on him by Surrey.

With rain expected to have a major say on day one, this could well become a three-day contest, which makes the draw a strong possibility. Four out of the last seven meetings between these two sides have also ended in stalemate - for that reason I am going to say this will be another draw, though a far from boring one.

G Rees, M Cosgrove, J Dalrymple (capt), B Wright, J Allenby, T Maynard, M Wallace (wk), J Harris, D Cosker, D Harrison and H Waters.

Michael Gough and David Millns.

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