Rory Burns leads his men up to Edgbaston to take on last year’s County Championship winners Warwickshire.
Surrey’s opening County Championship fixture will be a real test against the Bears. Warwickshire skipper Will Rhodes says: “Surrey are very strong and it’s going to be a really competitive game, a really high-class match and that’s what two-division championship cricket is all about because you want to play the best teams week in and week out.
“They know about our players, Dom Sibley in particular because of his connections with them, but we know about them too and, while they are strong, we have some very talented players right the way down our team.”
One man with plenty of intel on the opposition is Surrey’s new interim assistant coach Jim Troughton, who played for the Midlanders from 2001-2014, captaining them to the title in 2012 before going on to coach the side.
Two players Troughton will not know much about are new recruits Alex Davies, the former Lancashire wicket-keeper, and Australian fast bowling all-rounder Nathan McAndrew – brought in to replace the retired Tim Bresnan – but as it happens, neither player will feature against Surrey, Davies serving a one-match suspension. Chris Woakes has been ordered to rest by England, while Liam Norwell is absent with a back spasm.
One man many Warwickshire fans are excited about watching develop is Jacob Bethell. When England reached the final of the U19 Men’s World Cup over the winter, Bethell was one of the stars of the tournament, the all-rounder’s stunning 88 off 42 balls in the quarter-final against South Africa being his stand-out contribution.
WARWICKSHIRE
Director of Sport: Paul Farbrace
First team coach: Mark Robinson
Assistant coach: Jonathan Trott
Captain: Will Rhodes
Overseas player: Nathan McAndrew
In: Alex Davies (Lancs)
Out: Ed Pollock (Worcestershire), Alex Thomson (Derbyshire), Tim Bresnan (retired)
MATCHDAY SQUAD
Will Rhodes (c)
Jacob Bethell
Danny Briggs
Henry Brookes
Michael Burgess (wk)
Sam Hain
Olly Hannon-Dalby
Manraj Johal
Matt Lamb
Craig Miles
Dan Mousley
Dom Sibley
Rob Yates
How to follow the match
The game will be streamed live on the Warwickshire CCC website, including commentary from Mark Church. Please note that Warwickshire’s stream is free to watch, but does require you to provide your personal information to access the match. Live ball by ball commentary is also available from the BBC Sport website and on BBC Five Live Sports Extra from 10.50am.
Head-to-heads (Surrey record v Warwickshire)
P W L D Ab
Home 84 38 15 31 1
Away 84 24 18 42 2
Total 168 62 33 73 3
Last three matches v Warwickshire:
April 21-24, 2017 at Edgbaston: Warwickshire 332 (IJ Westwood 153, TK Curran 4-98, SM Curran 3-74, MHA Footitt 3‑66) & 435-8 dec (Westwood 52, IR Bell 99, TR Ambrose 85, KHD Barker 70*, TK Curran 4-112) drew with Surrey 437 (MD Stoneman 123, SG Borthwick 50, KC Sangakkara 105, DP Sibley 56, JS Patel 3-74)
May 27-30, 2019 at Edgbaston: Warwickshire 293 (LC Norwell 64, M Morkel 3-87, MP Dunn 3-65, GJ Batty 2-47) & 166‑9 dec (WMH Rhodes 54, Batty 8-64) beat Surrey 188 (BT Foakes 57*, JS Patel 4-53) & 141 (R Clarke 51*, Patel 8-36) by 130 runs
June-23-26, 2019 at The Kia Oval: Surrey 194 (TJ Lester 4-41, CN Miles 3-58) & 325 (MD Stoneman 71, D Elgar 53, SM Curran 52, Miles 5-91, JS Patel 3-65) beat Warwickshire 230 (WMH Rhodes 51, M Morkel 3-72, Curran 3-50, J Clark 3-62) & 215 (DP Sibley 73, GJ Batty 4-34) by 74 runs
