Surrey vs Durham, CCDO_2024, Today Match Prediction 17 July 2024

SUR vs DUR Match Prediction & Analysis

It's that time of the County Championship season where every match counts with titles and relegation issues being decided over the last two weeks of the season! Surrey remain top of the table in spite of their famous defeat in Taunton last week and after this clash will take on Essex to conclude their campaign.

For Durham, after their trip to South London, their season will end at home against Kent at Chester-le-Street on Thursday 26th September and they come into this match in fifth place in the table.

Although they are 44 points behind their hosts, Durham have a fine head to head record in this format and will travel south with plenty of confidence after their extraordinarily crushing victory over Lancashire last week.

TEAMS PREVIEW

Surrey Preview

After arriving in Somerset last week with visions of securing the County Championship Division One, Surrey still have plenty to do in their quest after they were beaten by 111 runs in Taunton. Late on day four, it looked like they would draw the match and keep second-placed Somerset at arms length but no one had banked on Surrey collapsing from 95/3 to 109 all out!

We can expect Surrey to not panic after that collapse and there will be at least one change to the side with Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan coming in for just the one County Championship game. In his place, we expect Tom Lawes to return and to boost the pace bowling ranks.

An area where Surrey will be looking to improve from last week's game is in batters turning starts into big scores after the top seven batter in their first innings at Taunton made scores between 12 and 86.

Surrey Predicted Playing XI:

Rory Burns (c), Dom Sibley, Ryan Patel, Ben Geddes, Ben Foakes (wk), Tom Curran, Jordan Clark, Tom Lawes, Cameron Steel, Kemar Roach, Daniel Worrall

Durham Preview

After a brilliant victory by an innings and 63 runs against Lancashire last week, Durham will travel down to London with plenty of confidence although without two of their top pace bowlers. Former New Zealand international Neil Wagner remains injured and will not play again during his stint with the county and England international Matthew Potts, who played at Chester-le-Street and took 3/58 & 9/68 after being dropped from the Test side, is back in for the ODI series against Australia. 

Fortunately for the visitors, they are not completely reliant on their bowling attack and have David Bedingham and Colin Ackermann coming into this game in brilliant form with the bat. Bedingham hit 27x fours on his way to 279 with Ackermann making 186 as the pair put on 425 for the fifth wicket partnership. Captain Scott Borthwick will need more of the same from the pair in this game in which he returns to his former county.

Durham Predicted Playing XI:

Alex Lees, Ben McKinney, Scott Borthwick (c), David Bedingham, Ollie Robinson (wk), Colin Ackermann, Ben Raine, Bas de Leede, Daniel Hogg, Callum Parkinson, Chemar Holder

Weather Conditions

The forecast is for an excellent four days in South London with no rain expected and the temperature set to reach the mid-twenties on all four days. There will be some cloud cover and some high levels of humidity which could assist the quick bowlers across the game.

SUR vs DUR Pitch Report

Traditionally the Oval has been a venue which has offered something for the spinners towards the end of the season, particularly after a hot or dry summer. In the UK, this year's summer has been cool and damp and so it is no surprise that the Oval has delivered pitches which have been far more conducive to seam and swing bowlers than spinners. We expect more of the same in this game with a par first innings score around 350-400.

Toss: To Bat

We don't expect to see a huge amount of deterioration of the pitch across the four scheduled days of this game but with good weather forecast, the better days for batting will be the first two. If there is to be any spin then it will likely come in on day four so we predict both captains will choose to bat first if they win the toss.