SOMERSET play Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in the final game of their LV= County Championship campaign on Tuesday with relegation still a possibility.

The Cidermen did themselves a massive favour by beating Surrey at the County Ground last week to lift themselves out of the bottom two.

But they need a good performance at Notts to make sure they avoid the drop.

If Somerset lose heavily, and Derbyshire conjure a victory at home to Warwickshire, the unthinkable could still happen.

Fortunately they will have the option of calling on both Jos Buttler and Jamie Overton who will be returning from England one-day duty.

Somerset triumphed in their crucial battle against Surrey. And at the end of a game they dominated throughout they ran out the winners by seven wickets.

In a tense and edgy match between the two bottom sides at Taunton it was Surrey, who after opting to bat first, crawled to 195 all out in 83.2 overs.

Alfonso Thomas claimed 4-23 and Craig Meschede 3-37.

After losing both Marcus Trescothick and Chris Jones in the first two overs Somerset recovered to post 260 thanks to an impressive 66 from Nick Compton, 38 from Pete Trego, and 32 from both Piyush Chawla and Craig Kieswetter.

Surrey were bowled out for 197 in their second innings, Meschede taking a career best 4-43.

That left Somerset needing 144 for victory which they reached for the loss of three wickets thanks to an unbeaten 36 from James Hildreth and 34 not out from Kieswetter.

Compton, who made 24, passed his 1,000 First Class runs for the season.

Skipper Trescothick said: “This win is huge for the boys. To get an extra 20 odd points in the bank is a real bonus.

“Hopefully this goes a long way towards making us safe in top division, but we will have to wait and see. We have done a really good job this week and given ourselves a very good chance of staying in division one. To get a victory in front of your own fans in the last home game in front of your own supporters is a very nice feeling.”

Looking ahead to next week’s game at Notts, who are in action at Durham this week, director of cricket Dave Nosworthy said: “The last match of the season is going to be a tough one for us away from home at Trent Bridge.

“We need to keep our focus and energy on playing quality cricket and very simply we need to execute our plans.

“Finishing on a high is important for us as in a season where things have not gone exactly to plan. We would like to finish strongly.”

n Despite the best efforts of Somerset’s Jos Buttler, England lost their five match ODI series against Australia.

The 22-year-old former King’s College youngster has been very much to the fore in the final two fixtures of the series.

In the fourth game at Cardiff on Saturday the big-hitting gloveman smashed an unbeaten 65 off 48 balls to see England home with three balls to spare to level the series.

In the fifth and final match Buttler claimed five victims behind the stumps and then made 42 off 37 balls but it wasn’t enough to prevent England being beaten.