YORKSHIRE V SURREY at Headingley (LVCC1), 30 JULY - 2 AUGUST 2008

For all their lack of achievement this summer, Surrey have had to endure their fair share of injuries. Mark Butcher is still out of the reckoning for a while, but it would appear that Matt Nicholson has made a miraculous recovery from knee cartilage trouble. Moreover, it is the Brown Caps' opponents who appear to have the greater injury concerns. Yorkshire are likely to be without Matthew Hoggard (shoulder), Anthony McGrath (hamstring) and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan (neck) for the clash at Headingley Carnegie starting tomorrow.

Nevertheless, the Tykes possess two batsmen with championship batting averages over forty this season and both are fit. Jacques Rudolph has led the way with the bat this term with 751 runs at an average of 53.64 and four hundreds. For the most part he has been backed up by Andrew Gale (616 runs at 41.06), but in their most recent outing, against Notts at Trent Bridge, Adam Lyth contributed a valiant 132 as the visitors sunk to their third championship defeat in a row.

With the red cherry Tim Bresnan (34 wickets at 27.29 runs apiece) has been the man Yorkshire have turned to when the conditions have suited seam, while Adil Rashid has continued to impress when the pitches have turned. If he plays, watch out for 24-year-old seamer Steven Patterson, who has seven wickets at an average of 20.57.

To follow... But, off the top of head, I recall something about Mark Ramprakash being one hundred away from a famous landmark.

Chris Jordan, who injured a calf against Glamorgan last week, is in Surrey's squad of thirteen, as are Nicholson (knee), Ramprakash (food poisoning) and Saqlain (spinning finger), all of whom missed the Brown Caps' most recent LV County Championship clash, which was with Durham at Guildford.  

With rain forecast on all four days, there's one thing you can be sure of at Leeds this week and that's the cloud cover synonymous with a swinging ball; and when the ball swings at Headingley, oh boy does it swing. Pedro Collins and Jade Dernbach are potentially the visitors' key performers. If they can get amongst the Tykes, who knows, those of us who have been thinking of backing Surrey to go throughout the season winless in the champo might just be proved wrong. But, having said all that, I'm going to sit on the fence and say there won't be enough time, with the rain, for either side to force a result.

J Sayers, C Taylor, A Lyth, J Rudolph, A Gale, G Brophy (wk), A Rashid, T Bresnan, D Gough (capt), D Kruis and S Patterson.

Richard Illingworth and Jeremy Lloyds.

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