SOMERSET County Cricket Club begin their 2022 LV= Insurance County Championship season with a Division One match against Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl today.

Play will get underway at 11am.

Somerset are currently without Tom Banton (finger), Jack Leach (unavailable), Craig Overton (unavailable) and Sonny Baker (back), whilst Lewis Gregory (illness) is also unavailable and Josh Davey is still recovering from a groin operation.

Head coach, Jason Kerr has named the following 13-man squad for the match: Tom Abell (c), Kasey Aldridge, George Bartlett, Jack Brooks, Steve Davies, Marchant de Lange, Lewis Goldsworthy, Ben Green, James Hildreth, Tom Lammonby, Ned Leonard, Peter Siddle and Roelof van der Merwe.

Ahead of the match, club captain, Tom Abell said: “We can’t wait to start the season. It’s been a long time coming and we’ve had a really productive winter.

“It’s a tough start for us at Hampshire , but it’s a challenge that we are very much looking forward to. We are certainly ready for it after the work that we’ve all put in over the winter."

The two sides have faced each other on 207 occasions in the County Championship.

Somerset have won 52 of these matches, Hampshire have won 67 times, 85 games have been drawn and three matches have been abandoned.

The last time the two sides met at the Ageas Bowl was in May last year and it was Somerset who triumphed by 10 wickets.

Head coach, Jason Kerr said: “We’ve taken a lot of learnings from last year and we’ve invested a lot of time over the winter and throughout pre-season ensuring that we are in the best possible place come that first game at Hampshire.

"There’s a real air of confidence within the group at the moment."