No county has thwarted Surrey for longer in the County Championship than Gloucestershire, whose start to the 2005 campaign has been even worse than many feared. At 200/1 their chances of winning Division One are rated as less likely than President Chirac lighting the Olympic flame at the 2012 games in London. The odds-setters seem to think there is little to choose between Kent, Nottinghamshire, Surrey and Warwickshire, but a victory at Bristol would almost certainly see the Ovalites' price of 9/2 shaved dramatically. So, if you are thinking of having a punt on Surrey, tomorrow may well be the last day to get any value. The odds for the match itself also puts the Bristolians' chances at slim - 13/8 in a two horse race - and it is not hard to see why. Unlike their opponents, who have almost be used to being without any overseas players for the best part of a year, Gloucestershire will be fielding an all England-qualified eleven. On top of that, one look at their championship batting averages indicates that, other than Chris Taylor (418 runs at an average of 32.15), no batsman has gone past 73 in seven outings. There has been better news on the bowling front, however. Jon Lewis (18 wickets at 22.55 runs apiece) and all-rounder Mark Hardinges have performed creditably. But Lewis, the destroyer of Surrey at Bristol last summer, is currently with the England one-day squad. Looking ahead to the trip the Surrey coach Steve Rixon told Oval World: "I look at other games of cricket and see how other sides have been going about their business and I'm extremely happy with what I'm seeing. You've got a guy in Harbhajan that's extraordinarily hungry to produce a final performance for the club, if it is his final performance, and I think you might find he'll have a major say in the Gloucester game. Thorpey will also be desperate to score runs having been knocked over for a globe in the second eleven game the other day just to add to the woes. He's obviously got to be hungry, not that he feels the pressure, but if there's a time for things to click for him it's right now."
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