Glamorgan all-rounder Adrian Dale could miss the start of the season, writes Ray Parker.

He went into hospital yesterday for a small shoulder operation and captain Steve James admitted it would be "touch and go" if Dale would be fit for the opening county championship match against Derbyshire at Derby, beginning April 18.

James said: "We are hoping he will be OK for the start of the season, but it's touch and go."

Glamorgan start a three-day friendly with Somerset at Taunton tomorrow after being able to net outdoors and James added: "It has been unbelievable for this time of the season."

Somerset are well stocked for fast bowlers but new arrival Nixon McLean, the West Indian who spent two seasons with Hampshire, won't be in action against Glamorgan.

He is expected in the next few days after playing in South Africa for Natal.

Steffan Jones, former Glamorgan fast bowler, missed a lot of last season with hamstring and ankle trouble, but he is now fit and fighting for a first-team place while Test bowler Andy Caddick has announced his retirement from one-day international cricket, leaving him available for more Somerset matches.

Somerset have also signed 24-year-old all-rounder Aaron Laraman from Middlesex.

Glamorgan are without their overseas paceman Mike Kasprowicz, who arrives from Australia later this month, while England fast bowler Simon Jones is likely to miss most of the season after his knee injury in Australia.

Glamorgan squad: Steve James, Ian Thomas, David Hemp, Mike Powell, Matthew Maynard, Jonathan Hughes, Mark Wallace, Robert Croft, Darren Thomas, Alex Wharf, David Harrison, Andrew Davies.

* Ben Smith finally has the challenge he has been wanting for the last four years.

The captaincy of Worcestershire has come his way after only one season on the staff - but his apparently rapid promotion tells only half the tale of a thinking cricketer who has privately long hankered after the opportunity to lead a county team.

Smith made his name as a technically and temperamentally well-organised middle-order batsman in a Leicestershire side who won county championship titles in 1996 and 1998.

But he admits as long ago as 1999 he was hoping for the chance to prove himself as a captain - and the hint is that it was with those thoughts still in his mind he moved west from Grace Road to New Road last year.

"I would have liked the captaincy a couple of years earlier at Leicestershire, but it did not come about," he says.