SURREY V DURHAM at the Brit Oval (LVCC1), 8-11 JULY 2007

A lot has happened since Surrey last squared up to Durham in the County Championship, nearly seven years ago. When they did meet last, the Oval outfit were confirmed as the 2000 County Champions. Ben Hollioake and Ian Ward were playing for the hosts and Mark Ramprakash was still plying his trade with Middlesex. Generally speaking, therefore, tomorrow's visitors are an unknown quantity.

With the exception of Yorkshire, Durham were the form side in the championship prior to the mid-season break for the Twenty20 Cup, registering victories over Worcestershire (by 241 runs), Kent (by 157 runs) and Yorkshire (by 6 wickets). To cut a long story short, the Riversiders are a team to be taken seriously, even though they will be without Paul Collingwood and Michael Di Venuto.

The absence of Di Venuto, who dislocated a finger, is an obvious blow, but skipper Dale Benkenstein has raced to 537 runs in this season's championship and averages 59.66. Even though Kyle Coetzer is averaging 34.42, the 23-year-old Scot has a first-class batting average of 45.73 after 14 appearances. Pity, for Durham, that Gordon Muchall has not grown into the player everyone feels he should be. But as Gibson, Mustard and Styris have shown this term, there is no real shortage of batting.

However, Durham's strength has been with the ball. The mainstays of their attack have been 24-year-old seamer Graham Onions (26 championship wickets at 31.00 runs apiece) and veteran Ottis Gibson. The support cast have all had their moments. Steve Harmison is averaging 14.37 in the championship, Mark Davies 20.93, Liam Plunkett 24.58 and Callum Thorp 27.16. The only possible weakness is the absence of a front-line spinner.     

Mark Butcher has 24 first-class hundreds for Surrey. Scott Newman needs 55 runs for 5,000 career runs and 173 runs for 5,000 f-c runs for Surrey. Mark Ramprakash needs one more century for 40 f-c hundreds for Surrey. Kyle Coetzer requires 131 runs for 1,000 f-c career runs. Ottis Gibson needs 2 wickets for 600 career wickets. Philip Mustard needs 8 catches for 200 career catches and Graham Onions needs 7 wickets for 100 f-c wickets for Durham.

Harbhajan Singh will be making his first appearance of the season for Surrey, but with no other team news it remains to be seen whether he will be partnered by Nayan Doshi or Chris Schofield. Who knows, all three could play, but, even then, one of Jade Dernbach or Neil Saker seems likely to start since Rikki Clarke, who will probably take the new ball with Matt Nicholson, is still prone to back spasms. 

The weather forecast for day two suggests this will be a three-day match. Providing the conditions do not favour seam - which would play well an truly into the hands of the visitors - the most likely outcome would appear to be a draw. 

W Smith, G Muchall, S Styris, D Benkenstein (capt), P Mustard (wk), O Gibson, L Plunkett, P Wiseman, M Davies, G Onions and S Harmison.

John Holder and Allan Jones.

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