Durham vs Warwickshire, County Championship One, Today Match Prediction

DUR vs warks Match Prediction & Analysis

Some pundits suggest that the opening game of any tournament or championship is worth its weight in gold and defeat spells the end of hopes for that particular campaign. Many others disagree and fans of Durham and Warwickshire will both be looking to get their first win of this season on the board when their meeting gets underway in the north east on Friday morning.

Durham gave a large first innings lead to Nottinghamshire during their first game of the season and in spite of some spirited batting in both innings, were easily beaten at Trent Bridge.

But always a tougher nut to crack at home, Durham will fancy their chances against a Warwickshire team who draw more than anything else!

It was a good batting wicket in Birmingham last week but they can expect a tougher challenge with the bat after making scores of 454 and 104/2 in their draw with Sussex.

TEAMS PREVIEW

Durham Preview

Colin Ackermann and Graham Clark were Durham's two most impressive players with the bat during their defeat against Nottinghamshire with the former hitting a century in both innings and Clark, batting down at number seven, contributing 45 and 62.

Captain Alex Lees also comes into this game with some form to speak of after hitting 52 in the first innings at Trent Bridge and he will want to post something similar in this match with Zak Crawley's place at the top of England's Test batting order looking increasingly insecure.

With the ball, another England hopeful, Matthew Potts, impressed in Nottinghamshire's first innings, taking a four-wicket haul and his opening partner Ben Raine impressed with his economy rate of 2.81.

Warwickshire will be another tough test for Durham but the men from the north east will be hoping that home advantage counts for something when round two gets underway.

Durham Predicted Playing XI:

Alex Lees (c), Ben McKinney, Emilio Gay, Colin Ackermann, Ollie Robinson (wk), Will Rhodes, Graham Clark, George Drissell, Ben Raine, Paul Coughlin, Matthew Potts

Warwickshire Preview

Although Warwickshire also failed to get off to a winning start last week, they too travel up north for this fixture with players high on confidence after enjoying a strong personal start to the season.

Opener Rob Yates is another who will be hoping that he can capitalise on the good weather around at the start of the season. And even though he has a modest first class record, he began this season with scores of 115 and 65 not out so it will be interesting to see how he gets on against someone like Matthew Potts.

With the ball, Warwickshire took 17 wickets against Sussex but conceded over 840 runs! Ethan Bamber starred in the first innings with 4/105 from 30 overs before Yates showed his all-round ability with 3/79 in the second innings.

We expect Bamber, Dan Mousley and Vishwa Fernando to be the most dangerous bowlers in this game.

Warwickshire Predicted Playing XI:

Rob Yates, Alex Davies (c), Hamza Shaikh, Sam Hain, Ethan Bamber, Dan Mousley, Ed Barnard, Kai Smith (wk), Michael Booth, Tazeem Chaudry Ali, Vishwa Fernando

Weather Conditions

The best weather is set to be on Friday in the north east of England before the clouds roll in on Saturday with a high chance of rain across Sunday and Monday. The temperature is also set to drop from 19 on Friday to just 13 on Monday.

DUR vs warks Pitch Report

The pitch at the Riverside Stadium is one which tends to be batter friendly although overhead conditions can play a part in bringing the bowlers into the contest. A par first innings total will be in the region of 350.

Toss: To Bat

The weather forecast suggests the best batting conditions will be across the first day and some of day two. Therefore, we predict that both teams will want to bat first in this game.