COACH Peter Moores admits Sussex will never have a better chance to beat Championship favourites Lancashire.

The sides open the new season at Old Trafford today with Lancashire missing four of their top players.

Michael Atherton is still suffering from the back injury which has ruled him out of England's World Cup squad, while Ian Austin, Neil Fairbrother and Andy Flintoff are all taking part in the Coca Cola Cup tournament in Sharjah.

In contrast, Sussex will field their strongest possible side with only left-armer Jason Lewry, who is recovering from shoulder surgery, missing.

Moores, who had trials with Lancashire at the start of his career, is convinced Sussex can repeat their victory over the Red Rose in the opening match of last season.

"There's no doubt it's a good time to be playing them," said Moores. "They have got some quality players missing.

"Old Trafford is still an intimidating place to play though and the wicket normally does a bit, especially this early in the season.

"It is still a hard test for us, but I'm very happy with our pre-season, we've worked hard and we can't wait to get started."

Sussex will open with left-hander Toby Peirce and Richard Montgomerie, but Moores admit it was a 'tough call' choosing Peirce ahead of Wasim Khan.

"Chris Adams and I discussed the side for an hour and virtually all that time was spent talking about the openers' positions.

"We just felt Toby had a fractionally better pre-season than Waz, he was gutted and it was a horrible decision to make, a really tough call."

As well as Montgomerie, Tasmanian Michael Di Venuto and Tony Cottey will make their Sussex debuts but Alex Edwards is likely to get the nod ahead of another new boy, Umer Rashid.

John Crawley leads Lancashire for the first time and his only selection dilemna will be which two bowlers to use from left-arm spinner Gary Schofield, off-spinner Gary Yates and 22-year-old paceman Michael Smethurst who took 4-44 during the win over Cambridge University at the weekend.

Lancashire (from): Wood, Chilton, Crawley, Lloyd, McKeown, Watkinson, Hegg, Chapple, Green, Martin, Yates, Schofield, Smethurst.

SUSSEX: Montgomerie, Peirce, Adams, Di Venuto, Cottey, Rao, Martin-Jenkins, Humphries, Kirtley, Edwards, Robinson. 12th man: Rashid.

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