Lancashire go into their first championship meeting with Surrey in four years, and their first ever visit to Woodbridge Road, with as many wins and losses as their hosts. Both have only one victory, offset by three defeats.

For Lancashire, the biggest headache has been a lack of runs. Ashwell Prince (661 championship runs at an average of 47.21) is the only front-line batsman currently averaging over 31 in four-day cricket. Thanks to six not outs, Kyle Hogg is averaging 40. Stephen Moore and all-rounder Luke Procter are yet to make a half-century in their nine outings to date.

Procter is, however, having more success with the ball, while Glen Chapple and Ajmal Shahzad have been effective with the new ball. But the key man has been 23-year-old slow left-armer, Simon Kerrigan, who, with 27 championship wickets at 28.11 runs apiece, is currently the red rose county's leading wicket-taker.

Chris Tremlett (1,979) is approaching 2,000 first-class career runs and Gareth Batty (with 97) is close to 100 f-c wickets for Surrey. Of the Lancashire contingent, both Ajmal Shahzad and Tom Smith need four more wickets for 150 in first-class cricket.

Following the death of Tom Maynard, the withdrawal of Rory Hamilton-Brown and the retirement of Mark Ramprakash, Surrey will have a batting line-up much changed from their last championship outing, at Horsham, a month ago. Arun Harinath has picked up a thumb injury and Gary Wilson is on international duty for Ireland, so the likely candidates, to come in, are Zafar Ansari and Rory Burns, both of whom may open, while Kevin Pietersen is available prior to hooking up with the England Test team next week. On the bowling front Chris Tremlett is included in Surrey's 13-man squad, but faces a last minute fitness test.

Recent history suggests we can write off a Surrey win. They haven't tasted championship success at Guildford since 2002. But the weather may well have the biggest say. Rain is forecast to write-off half of the playing time available, which is enough to convince me this will be a draw.

P Horton, S Moore, K Brown, A Prince, S Croft, L Procter, G Cross (wk), G Chapple (capt), A Shahzad, K Hogg and S Kerrigan.

Peter Hartley and Neil Mallender.

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