Twelve months ago I was spitting feathers when Glamorgan took Surrey for over 700 runs. A year on, the Welshmen are on course for promotion, so perhaps that performance was an indication that Glamorgan were on the up. Surrey, meanwhile, are stuck in the bottom half of Division Two.

The Welshmen's strength this summer has been their bowling. James Harris and James Allenby have been the stand out seamers with 51 and 38 championship wickets apiece at less than 22. In addition, Huw Waters and David Harrison have been pretty respectable. However, if the pitch at the Oval is likely to turn one of them may be asked to make way for Robert Croft, who has played second fiddle to Dean Cosker (40 wickets at 23.15 runs apiece) in the twirlers' department this term.

With the bat, Mark Cosgrove has been Glamorgan's lynchpin with 1,054 championship runs at an average of 50.19, including five hundreds, while Allenby has been a model of consistency with nine scores over fifty in 20 completed innings. Although Gareth Rees has not had a productive end to the season, Ben Wright has. The 22-year-old is second only to Cosgrove in terms of runs in the championship this summer. The Welshmen will also be bouyed by the return from injury of their skipper Jamie Dalrymple, whose career best 244 came at the Oval six years ago when he was playing for Middlesex. 

Gareth Batty is set to make his 150th first-class appearance. If Arun Harinath plays it will be his 25th. Mark Ramprakash is 104 runs away from equaling  his 15,046-run haul for Middlesex in first-class cricket. Of the visitors, Jim Allenby has 96 f-c career wickets.

Gary Wilson will take over the wicketkeeping responsibilities from Steven Davies, who is on international duty. Surrey have named seven bowlers in their 12-man squad for tomorrow, which includes the names of Tim Linley and Chris Schofield. But, surprisingly, Jason Roy's name is missing and Arun Harinath looks set to be omitted. Will Kevin Pietersen be asked to open? Now that would be an interesting development.

Sometimes I am accused of using the weather to 'sit on the fence' when it comes to this section of my game previews, but if, like me, you've seen the forecast for the next four days it will be astonishing if we see a positive result to this match. Prediction - a game for bonus point lovers (and ducks).

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

Martin Bodenham and Nick Cook.

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