Derbyshire v Surrey Preview

If the sun hasn't got his head gear on yet, he must surely have it in a nice safe place for tomorrow.

Yep, County cricket, the game of the Gods, returns to the County Ground tomorrow and Derbyshire can kick start their season with a first win in this game, even without skipper Chris Rogers or star seamer Charl Langeveldt.

The frustrating thing is that Charl is sat in his native South Africa and cannot get a game for Kolkata Knightriders, who should surely feature David Hasselhoff in their star studded line-up...

The fact is that young Aussie Moises Henriques, an all rounder of potential is getting a place in place of Langeveldt. The fact is he's not yet strong enough in either discipline to displace Charl in my humble opinion and his four overs for 32 today were not in the same ballpark as the South African.

Nevertheless they won, but when your first three are Brendan McCullum, Chris Gayle and Brad Hodge, with Ganguly to follow you'd fancy your chances. Gayle is a much improved player in the last couple of years and has married a little more common sense to his extravagant stroke play.

Back to Derbyshire and we're also likely to be without Graham Wagg, despite his presence in the squad. They'll presumably make a late decision on his fitness, but its a big gamble to go into a four day game with one of your seamers nursing a hip injury.

The Derbyshire squad is:

Steve Stubbings
Garry Park
Stuart Law
Dan Redfern
Wavell Hinds
Greg Smith
James Pipe (captain)
Graham Wagg
Jonathan Clare
Tom Lungley
Jake Needham
Ian Hunter
Mark Lawson

John Morris said that the pitch was dry this morning which would suggest increasing turn as the game goes on. Assuming Wavell Hinds is fit and Wagg isn't, the coach has to choose between Jake Needham and Mark Lawson for the spinning berth. Alternatively he may opt to play both, which could leave Tom Lungley the odd man out after expensive spells at Chelmsford. This would still leave us with Hunter, Clare, Smith and Park to bowl seam with Wavell available if his calf strain is up to it. With Redfern and Smith's off spin in reserve we still have bowling options and that's without Stuart Law, a man with almost 200 career wickets, turning his arm over...

Surrey have big name absentees with Mark Ramprakash banned and Mark Butcher injured. The game sees Chris Adams return to the County Ground in charge of this squad:

Michael Brown (captain)
Laurie Evans
Scott Newman
Matthew Spriegel
Usman Afzaal
Jonathan Batty
James Benning
Chris Jordan
Chris Schofield
Andre Nel
Pedro Collins
Jade Dernbach
Alex Tudor

There's inexperience at the top of the order, although Newman is a fair player and Afzaal is capable of good scores. John Morris tried to bring him to Derbyshire and I hope that after this game he realises he made the wrong decision in going down south. Batty is also a steady batsman and Jordan an all-rounder of promise, but I think Derbyshire are capable of beating them if the weather stays fine.

While Andre Nel is another of the game's great competitors and West Indian Pedro Collins can bowl a good spell, the visitors attack doesn't fill me with fear. Dernbach gets wickets but bowls his share of bad balls and Tudor must be on the last leg of a long and largely unfulfilled County career.

While such comments could come back to haunt me, I'm confident that a revitalised Derbyshire can win this game and cement a confident start to the 2009 season.

Let's do it boys!