County Cricket / Michael Vaughan / 16 September 2011 /

Somerset will have to believe they can finally win a final and they will also have to beat an extremely good side in Surrey. It may all be a bit too much to ask, says Michael Vaughan.

Surrey v Somerset, Lord's, 11:30 (Live on Sky Sports 1 and HD1)

The big question on everyone's mind is whether this will be the match where Somerset finally break their duck. You've got to hand it to them over their consistent enough when it comes to making limited-overs finals; they just can't seem to win any of them! That will weigh heavily on their minds and to make matters worse, they'll be missing the all-round talents of Kieron Pollard, who is away on T20 Champions League duty. Their inspirational skipper and big-hitting opener Marcus Trescothick has said he's 50-50 for this match and I hope he makes it but, unfortunately for Somerset fans, my experience of playing with Marcus is that he finds it difficult to score runs when he's just coming back from injury. Even if he does figure, I wouldn't expect him to go and make a big score the way I would if he'd been playing and scoring runs coming into the final.

In the other corner we have Surrey, where the talented names roll off the tongue: Hamilton-Brown, Davies, Zander de Bruyn, Maynard, Arafat, Batty, Schofield. We could keep going. I have a feeling that this young side could develop into another of those very strong Surrey outfits that we've seen in the past. Rory Hamilton-Brown is the one they all talk about because he was given the captaincy of one of the super-powers of the County game so young and has played some explosive knocks at the top of the order in limited-overs cricket. But the one I really like is Tom Maynard and personally I think he should have been included in the T20 squad for those upcoming matches against the West Indies. Jade Dernbach, who I've already praised for his performances for England will also be available and that's a big plus for them too.

I'm hoping this will be an entertaining match at the home of cricket and I think anything over 250 from the side batting first will be pretty competitive.

I'd love Somerset to win this because I think they deserve some silverware at long last and they're a nice bunch down there. But that choker tag must weigh pretty heavily on their necks and, pound-for-pound, Surrey look the better side and will be high on confidence, having just gained promotion from Division Two in the County Championship. So Surrey it is for me and I'm backing Maynard Jr to top score for them at around [5.0]

Back Surrey to win @ [1.88]
Back Tom Maynard to be Surrey top batsman @ [5.0]

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