Amazingly, seven out of the last nine championship meetings between these two sides have ended in stalemate. During that time, the bat has governed the ball; which will be a relief to Somerset, who were skittled out for 132 and 186 by Durham in Week One. Mind you, the Cidermen were without overseas player Alviro Petersen for that game. Only Craig Kieswetter (21 and 72) and James Hildreth made double figures in both innings up at the Riverside. But, over the last couple of years, Nick Compton and Marcus Trescothick have been two of the most consistent batsmen on the county circuit, with first-class batting averages of 76.24 and 64.09 respectively. On the flip side, Jos Buttler is becoming something of an enigma. Naturally talented, certainly, but he has only hit two championship hundreds in 52 completed innings. The Somerset attack looks all the stronger for Alfonso Thomas's decision to turn his back on the IPL and George Dockrell, a 20-year-old slow left-armer, is improving with each game. The weak link, however, are the Overton twins, who are most definitely ones for the future, but at 19-years-of-age are proving expensive.

Factoid alert... Last week, all eight toss-winning captains chose to bowl first. However, teams batting first at The Oval have lost only two County Championship matches in the last four seasons (W10 D12 L2).

Four players look set to debut for their new employers - Graeme Smith, Gary Keedy and Vikram Solanki for the hosts and Alviro Petersen for the visitors. Stuart Meaker goes into the clash with 145 first-class career wickets; while, for Somerset, James Hildreth will start with 9,911 f-c runs against his name.

Game one and already there's a surprise omission - Jason Roy has not been named in the Oval outfit's 13-man squad, despite playing in more four-dayers for the county than anyone other than Batty and De Bruyn in 2012. At Monday's AGM, Chris Adams hinted strongly that Surrey are likely to field just four front-line bowlers for this game, which would make it a case of four from Gareth Batty, Jade Dernbach, Gary Keedy, Tim Linley, Stuart Meaker and Chris Tremlett.

Despite losing to Durham last week, Somerset do at least go into this clash with a game under their belts. Put simply, Surrey will have to hit the ground running against one of the sides that started the season as one of the leading fancies for the title. Also, the Cidermen are at full strength with Petersen's arrival. When he last played a championship game at the Oval the South African made 210, for Glamorgan. The forecast suggests we might lose some time to the weather, which, if the pitch favours the batsmen, favours the draw, as, indeed, I do on this occasion.

M Trescothick (capt), N Compton, A Petersen, J Hildreth, C Kieswetter (wk), J Buttler, P Trego, A Thomas, J Overton, G Dockrell and S Kirby.

Jeff Evans and Richard Kettleborough.

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