Surrey v Worcestershire - same again please

Surrey take on Worcestershire at New Road starting tomorrow off the back of a really good performance against Sussex last week.  If the inconsistent pattern of this season is to be followed by Surrey, this will be a crushing defeat, but I think we'll give them more than a run for their money.

The following squad has been named, and my preference for the team is as follows:

Tom Lancefield
Arun Harinath
Mark Ramprakash
Steven Davies
Rory Hamilton-Brown
Stewart Walters
Matthew Spriegel
Gareth Batty
Chris Tremlett
Stuart Meaker
Jade Dernbach

Bench: Steven Cheetham, Tim Linley

I see no reason to change an (almost) winning formula.  The only question given the squad named, is whether we play the extra seamer, either Cheetham or Linley but I don't think we should.  The openers are not in the best of form so the batting needs to stay as deep as possible, and the bowling versus Sussex was excellent, Dernbach and Meaker will only get better the more overs they bowl.

Worcestershire aren't the most consistent of sides, much the same as Surrey, in their last two Championship games they've been battered by Glamorgan and beaten Gloucestershire, impressively chasing down 340 to win on the final day.  In the game at Croydon earlier in the season an excellent first innings total from Surrey was all-but-equalled thanks to twin hundreds from Solanki and Moeen Ali.  That said, some good bowling from Surrey in the second innings took us to within two wickets of a victory.

In Darryl Mitchell, Moeen and young Alexei Kervezee, who have eight hundreds between them, they have a decent batting lineup and though Solanki hasn't been in the best form, he's still a quality player.  Their bowling isn't weak either, the pace lineup is led by Alan Richardson and Matt Mason who have 67 wickets between them and Shakib al Hasan is a world class spinner (and not a bad batsman to boot!).

After the performance against Sussex we should be looking to take all the (many) positives from that and push for a win this week.  The bowling unit is looking impressive at the moment and the batting is chock full of runs, even if they didn't show it last week.  A big innings from the skipper would go down very well thank you very much, and then over to Tremlett and Co to do what they do best, come on the 'Rey!