SURREY BROWN CAPS V IRELAND at the Brit Oval (Friends Provident Trophy), 27 MAY 2007

Ireland may have beaten Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as hold Zimbabwe to a tie during the World Cup, but, after five games, they are yet to register a victory in this season's Friends Provident Trophy and are rooted to the bottom of the South Conference table.

As a player, Phil Simmons, Ireland's manager, played Surrey four times in one-day cricket - all of them when he was at Leicestershire. On three occasions, including the Benson & Hedges Cup semi-final in 1998, he finished on the winning side. Indeed, he marked his last one-day visit to the Oval, in the National League, with a match-winning 114, which he then followed up with the wickets of Alistair Brown and Adam Hollioake to claim figures of 2-30 from seven overs. What Ireland, or, for that matter, Simmons's native West Indies would give for a player of his ilk right now.

Ireland's batting looks fragile and the bowling can, at best, be described as serviceable. William Porterfield, who heads up the order, made 88 in Ireland's last Friends Provident outing, against Essex at Dublin, which ended in yet another tame defeat. But Peter Gillespie (155 runs at an average of 38.75), who was just given one game in the World Cup, has been the only other man amongst the runs. Jeremy Bray, who led the way in the Caribbean has a meagre 51 runs to show for four innings in the Trophy.

Tomorrow, the Irish will be without their joint leading wicket-taker in this year's competition, opening bowler Dave Langford-Smith, who sustained an intercostal injury while bowling in the InterContinental Cup Final against Canada at Leicester this week. The other man with seven FPT wickets to his name, South Africa's Nantie Hayward, who appears as an overseas signing, is available. But it's not all good news because Hayward has proved expensive. Much will therefore depend on skipper Trent Johnston's ten over allocation.

Of those likely to be playing, Alistair Brown has 19 List A hundreds and Chris Schofield has 96 wickets. Of Ireland's line-up, Jesse Ryder is set to make his 50th appearance in one-day cricket, while Peter Gillespie has 949 List A career runs and Kyle McCallan has 46 wickets.

Surrey are set to name the same side as beat the Sussex Sharks on Tuesday night, although Mohammad Akram is named in the squad of twelve.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is much the same as for the rest of the week, and it's not good news. If, by some chance, the weathermen have got it wrong, though, back Surrey to win. Secretly, they would love to avenge their defeat at Clontarf in 2004.

W Porterfield, K Carroll, J Ryder, K O'Brien, P Gillespie, D Johnston (capt), A White, G Wilson (wk), T Fourie, K McCallan and N Hayward.

Barrie Leadbeater and Steve Garratt.

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