When Gloucestershire lost their opening two games, both of which were at home, coach John Bracewell predicted that their championship form would improve when they played away. How right he was. Last week's 103-run victory over Middlesex at Lord's either means that Gloucestershire were unlucky to run into two strong opponents first up or that the North Londoners are set to become the whipping boys of Division Two this summer. With Surrey making a similar to start to their campaign to Gloucestershire, this has the potential to be a tone-setting contest.

Gemaal Hussain, a 26-year-old seamer who, prior to this season, was a virtual unknown, has really burst on to the scene with the ball; taking 22 championship wickets at an average of 13.72. Steve Kirby and even skipper Alex Gidman are also picking up their wickets for less than twenty runs apiece. But all of Gloucestershire's batsmen have struggled. Only Hamish Marshall is averaging over thirty after three outings. Jonathan Batty has dug in, but not produced anywhere near as much with the bat as he has done with the gloves. Chris Adams will be hoping Batty doesn't have the same impact on his return to the Brit Oval as Steven Davies had today when he want back to New Road for the first time.   

Last summer, Gloucestershire had the good fortune of not having to face a Surrey side containing Mark Ramprakash (whose last four championship innings against the Bristolians read 192, 292, 75 and 51). Consequently, the Oval outfit failed to make 200 in both of their first digs. While Ramprakash has a first-class batting average of 55.20 against tomorrow's visitors, Steven Davies can boast a record of 384 runs at 76.80, which the former Worcestershire stumper kicked off with his career best score of 192 at Bristol in June 2006.

Chris Schofield goes into this contest with 983 first-class runs for Surrey against his name. Of the Gloucestershire contingent Steve Kirby has 248 f-c wickets for the Bristolians, whereas Richard Dawson has 199 wickets in all first-class cricket.

Surrey are set to make at least one change to the side that drew with Worcestershire at Whitgift. Stewart Walters has been dropped. It is not clear who will take his place at the top of the order, but his berth in the team will be taken by either Stuart Meaker or Chris Tremlett.

With the weather forecasters saying we'll get rain on Friday, this match needs to be pretty well advanced by the end of day three if we're going to see a positive outcome one way or the other. Although the pitch Bill Gordon served up for the Derbyshire match gave the bowlers more of a chance, it was still a very good surface for the batsmen. I'm therefore going to say "draw".

Kadeer Ali, J Batty (wk), C Dent, H Marshall, A Gidman (capt), C Taylor, J Franklin, J Lewis, V Banerjee, G Hussain and S Kirby.

Richard Illingworth and David Millns.

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