Tomorrow night these sides will be meeting for only the third time in five seasons in one-day cricket. The records books would suggest that the home side hold the advantage, having won their last four limited-over meetings with the Oval outifit, but, as I say, some of those games are consigned firmly to history. Leicestershire have really fallen on hard times and, to make matters worse, some of their players have been in the wars recently. Trevor Ward misses out with a suspected broken finger, whilst Rob Cunliffe, Virender Sehwag and Darren Stevens have all been told they will not play again this season. The Foxes go into the encounter having lost three out of their last four National Cricket League games. Only two of the batsmen they will have on show is currently averaging over thirty in the National League - Brad Hodge (368 runs at an average of 30.66) and Darren Maddy. Surrey have will field at least twice as many. To be fair, a number of Leicestershire's matches have been low-scoring affairs. Consequently, Phil DeFreitas, Jeremy Snape and Vasbert Drakes have all bowled creditably. But the attack has weaknesses, none more so than 25-year-old seamer David Masters, who has not yet managed to find a consistent line and length since joining the Grace Road outfit from Kent. In terms of up and coming landmarks, Mark Ramprakash is poised to make his 50th limited-overs appearance for Surrey and Graham Thorpe needs one more hundred to record his tenth in one-day cricket for the club. Tomorrow is also Jimmy Ormond's 26th birthday.
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