Surrey head into only their third championship meeting with Worcestershire in five seasons with a record of played two, won one and lost one, while the New Road outfit, who sat out the last round of matches, have suffered one loss, to Nottinghamshire.

Last summer, Worcestershire's achilles heel was their batting. Just three players recorded championship hundreds - Moeen Ali, Alex Kervezee and Vikram Solanki, who was the only one to exceed 1,000 championship runs last term. It came as no surprise, therefore, when they were skittled out for 130 in their first dig of the new campaign. But it was a different story in the second innings. Daryl Mitchell made 102 and, while in tandem with Ali, who hit 94, it looked as though Worcestershire might pull off a shock.

Allowing Notts to make 403 second time around proved to be the Pears' undoing. Other than Alan Richardson, who returned figures of 32-6-95-5, the Worcestershire attack failed to repeat their first innings exploits, in particular Richard Jones, who bagged 6-32 on the opening day at Trent Bridge. The 25-year-old struggled for fitness in 2011, so, with Gareth Andrew ruled out because of a knee injury, Worcestershire will be hoping Jones can bounce back from conceding 79 in sixteen overs for no reward.

Jade Dernbach and Stuart Meaker currently have 192 and 95 first-class wickets respectively. It may have taken him 140 appearances, but Worcestershire's Alan Richardson is now within touching distance of 1,000 f-c career runs. Meanwhile, the Pears' left-arm seamer David Lucas is eyeing up 250 first-class scalps. He currently has 243.

Jacques Rudolph misses Worcestershire's first championship visit to the Oval since 2006 for family reasons, consequently Jason Roy is likely to be given his first outing of the season. Will he fill Rudolph's spot at the top of the order? I doubt it. One candidate is Chris Jordan, but he looked low on confidence at Lord's and seems to be in line to make way for Stuart Meaker, who was rested for the all-London derby.

I keep predicting draws on the basis of the weather prospects, only for the rain to stay away. But the forecast for the next four days suggests we can expect no more than the equivalent of two days' play. They've got to be right eventually, so, I'm sitting on the fence once again in the hope that it results in "a ridge of high pressure coming in from the south."

D Mitchell (capt), M Klinger, V Solanki, M Ali, A Kervezee, J Cameron, B Scott (wk), S Choudhry, D Lucas, R Jones and A Richardson.

Jeff Evans and Nigel Llong.

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