SOMERSET V SURREY at Taunton (Royal London One-Day Cup), 7 MAY 2019

Surrey have a dire List A record against Somerset - just 4 wins and 1 no result in their last 23 meetings; although they did overcome the Cidermen in the Clydesdale Bank 40 final in 2011. Was that really eight years ago? My, how time flies.

There reasons for Somerset's success, so far, in this year's Royal London are many, but Craig Overton has delivered time after time. His 14 wickets at 15.78 runs apiece, an economy rate of 4.42 and 168 runs at an average of 56.00 is a record that speaks for itself. Josh Davey has chipped in with wickets too - nine at 26.77 and a 4.96-run economy.

With the bat they go deep. Before you get to Roelof van der Merwe - who hit an unbeaten 165 in this fixture two years ago - the visitors will need to see off Azhar Ali (303 Royal London runs at an average of 43.28), Peter Trego (33.42), James Hildreth (36.57) plus four others. 

Looking through the List A career records of Surrey's bowlers, Jade Dernbach (with 16 wickets at 28.75 runs apiece) is alone in having any degree of success against Somerset in one-day cricket. Of the batters, Rory Burns averages 49.75, Ben Foakes 39.00 and Mark Stoneman 34.00. Stoneman also has a List A century against the Cidermen - 112 for Durham at Taunton in 2015.

Surrey v Somerset - List A Records Sheet

Ben Foakes will start this contest with 97 dismissals with the gloves in List A cricket, while Somerset's Josh Davey (98) needs just two more poles for 100 one-day career wickets.

The only change for Surrey is the return of Ben Foakes, who, despite making a convincing case for continuing to part of the England set-up for the ODI series against Pakistan, now has to hand over the wicketkeeping gloves to Jos Buttler. Although not in the squad for tomorrow, Gus Atkinson, Matt Dunn, Arun Harinath and Amar Virdi have all come through outings for the 2nd XI unscathed en route to being fit once more. However, no target dates have been put on the return of Scott Borthwick (side strain), Rikki Clarke (finger dislocation) and Jade Dernbach (calf).

If they win this, Somerset will progress to the knockout phase, so the question is this - can Surrey (who are yet to register an away win this campaign) spoil Somerset's party? The bookmakers don't appear to think so and, on recent evidence, Surrey's woeful batting performances are what makes them odds against. But this is an important fixture, because it's the Oval outfit's last chance to build some confidence ahead of nine critical and consecutive County Championship fixtures - the first and fourth of which will be against Somerset, the current Division One table-toppers. Prediction - A win for the Cidermen, obviously, but come on Surrey, please don't end up coming third in a two-horse race again.

A.Ali, T.Banton (wk), P.Trego, J.Hildreth, T.Abell (capt), G.Bartlett, L.Gregory, R.van der Merwe, C.Overton, J.Overton and J.Davey.

Martin Saggers and Russell Warren.

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