KENT V SURREY at Beckenham (Royal London One-Day Cup), 1 JUNE 2018

Fifth in the South Group plays host to eighth in what will be a make-or-break game in terms of the hopes both have of moving forward to the last six in the Royal London, where the group winners will automatically qualify for the semi-finals and the second and third-placed teams in each group contest knockouts to determine who joins them.

Both Surrey and Kent go into this contest in decent form. The Oval outfit’s last three reads two victories followed by an abandonment against Sussex; while the Spitfires, who also started with two defeats, have gone on to record wins over Glamorgan, Hampshire and Somerset.

Kent's strength lies in their batting, which is just as well as all-rounder Darren Stevens is not getting any younger. Stevens remains economical with the ball, but Henry is the man Kent look to for wickets in the Royal London. So far, he has grabbed 10 at an average of 23.80.

Talking of the batting, which is headed by Daniel Bell-Drummond and Joe Denly (both of whom have made 219 Royal London runs thus far), the aforementioned plus Heino Kuhn and Sean Dickson are all currently averaging over forty.

Only two current Surrey players have ever hit half-centuries against Kent in List A one-day cricket - Jason Roy, who struck 112, when the Oval outfit knocked the Spitfires out at the quarter-final stage in 2015; and Ben Foakes, who made 82 not out in the corresponding fixture last year. That said, last year's championship fixture at Beckenham produced 1,453 runs for the loss of 20 wickets; that averages out at 72.65!

Surrey v Kent - List A Records Sheet

If he plays, Scott Borthwick will be making his 100th List A appearance. Rikki Clarke (145) is approaching 150 one-day career wickets. In the other dressing room, Daniel Bell-Drummond has 2,931 List A runs to his name, Heino Kuhn has 3,974 to his and Darren Stevens will start with 146 one-day victims with the ball.

With Sam Curran drafted into the England squad for the Second Test at Leeds (owing to a Ben Stokes hamstring), Mathew Pillans has been named in the Surrey party for Beckenham. With Dean Elgar's stint as overseas player also having ended, expect Morkel and Stoneman to see action for the first time in this year's Royal London.

Let's hope the weather proves to better than forecast, but on a small ground Surrey's bowling will be key - led by Morne Morkel. In 2007, he played at Beckenham - in a T20 game for Kent against Surrey; taking the wicket of Alistair Brown and conceding a miserly 2.25 runs per over. No bad, not bad at all!

D.Bell-Drummond, J.Denly, H.Kuhn, S.Billings (capt, wk), A.Blake, S.Dickson, D.Stevens, C.Haggett, M.Henry, H.Podmore and M.Claydon.

Rob Bailey and Alex Wharf.

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