WORCESTERSHIRE embark on their final New Road match of the season against Surrey today (10.30am) as they seek to clinch promotion from LV= County Championship Division Two.

The leaders have a seven-point cushion ahead of Hampshire at the top of the table and are 39 points clear of third-placed Surrey.

With just a visit to Essex to come, Worcestershire know their destiny is in their own hands.

“That’s testament to us putting a nice buffer between ourselves and other teams,” said director of cricket Steve Rhodes. “It’s been chiselled away at the moment.

“But it’s entirely up to us and if we get a good result against Surrey then we are going to go a long way towards achieving the things we want to achieve.”

Rhodes has named a 13-man squad, adding all-rounders Moeen Ali, who has returned from England duty, and Brett D’Oliveira to the 11 that lost by 138 runs at Derbyshire.

That was their second successive defeat following the seven-wicket loss to Gloucestershire — their first setbacks after seven wins from the opening 12 games.

Rhodes continued: “The thought process is just the same as it’s always been, just to pick up as many points as we can.

“We are very much hoping we can have a really good game against Surrey now because we’ve played some really good cricket this year.

“The last thing we want to do now is to have any stumbling at the last hurdle and that’s not really in our mind.

“It’s about trying to get into a good position to win and if we can do that, we’ll be picking up points along the way and putting ourselves into a good position to do the job against Surrey.”

He added: “We’ve got areas from the previous two games that we want to improve and, if we can focus on improving those areas and maintaining some of the other areas that have been good, that means the points will take care of itself.”

Moeen’s return should give Worcestershire’s bid for promotion a big boost after ending his England commitments until November.

He has been made available for the final two County games of the season after playing in seven Tests, two one day internationals in addition to the Twenty20 this summer.

D’Oliveira signed a new two-year contract last week and has been in good form with the bat for the seconds, scoring 102 and 86 in the win over Hampshire at New Road as an opener.

Worcestershire (from): Mitchell, Oliver, Moeen Ali, Fell, Kervezee, Kohler-Cadmore, Cox, Leach, Shantry, McClenaghan, Morris, Choudhry, D’Oliveira.