DURHAM will back their home-grown talent against Sussex's penchant for resurrecting other counties' cast-offs when the LV County Championship leaders visit Chester-le-Street for the four-day match starting tomorrow.

Ajmal Shahzad is following Chris Jordan and Jimmy Anyon by becoming the latest paceman to be rehabilitated at Hove, taking 12 wickets as Sussex have won both their opening games.

The victories, however, have been against the promoted teams, Hampshire and Worcestershire, and Durham can be expected to provide sterner opposition.

The fact that Shahzad has also made useful runs has propelled him to the top of the championship's Most Valuable Player rankings, having failed to make the top 100 for the last three years.

Following his fall-out with Yorkshire he spent half a season on loan at Lancashire, where his arrival heralded the departure of Sajid Mahmood. Then he moved on to Nottinghamshire, but that also failed to re-ignite a career which has featured a solitary Test, against Bangladesh in 2009.

Now 29, Shahzad has never been shy of a swagger and Durham will be keen to burst his bubble, while hoping Graham Onions and Chris Rushworth can maintain the excellent form they showed in the opening win at Taunton.

Onions broke down in the high-scoring draw at Hove in early May last season, when Sussex recovered from 115 for five through a stand of 335 between Luke Wright and wicketkeeper Ben Brown.

But in the return match six weeks later Durham won by 309 runs, which was their third successive home win against Sussex, who again have the services of Australian seamer Steve Magoffin.

Chester-le-Street pitches became more batsman-friendly last season and it will be interesting to see if there is any change under a new head groundsman.

Dave Measor, from Hartlepool, left after 23 years to work for a turf care business and was replaced by Vic Demain, who has been the No 2 at Trent Bridge for the last few years.

Durham (from): P D Collingwood (capt), M D Stoneman, K K Jennings, S G Borthwick, M J Richardson, C S MacLeod, P Mustard, J W Hastings, P Coughlin, G Onions, C Rushworth, U Arshad.

*Durham seconds lost their three-day game against Scotland A at Seaton Carew when two members of the Scots' senior team scored centuries yesterday.

Australia-born opener Hamish Gardiner hit his second hundred of the match and South African Preston Mommsen, Scotland's World Cup captain, made an unbeaten 105 to steer the visitors to their target of 318 with six wickets standing.

On a day when Jamie Harrison, Paul Coughlin and Usman Arshad did not bowl, the four wickets were shared by the off-spinners, 18-year-old all-rounder Adam Hickey and Ryan Pringle.

*Sunderland-born Ben Raine, the former Durham player, has signed a two-year contract extension with Leicestershire.

Seen more as a batsman by Durham, the 23-year-old all-rounder has been opening the bowling for the Foxes this season.

*Durham's trio of Ireland players, Peter Chase, Stuart Poynter and Barry McCarthy, have all been left out of the squad for the one-day match against England at Malahide on May 8. Ireland have recalled Middlesex's Tim Murtagh at the expense of Chase.