An inside look at Hampshire and Australian with Rose Bowl star Simon Katich.

THE duel between Shane Warne and Mushtaq Ahmed will be a fascinating feature of our south coast derby against Sussex at Hove.

Mushie has had two brilliant seasons for Sussex, taking more than 100 wickets as they won the championship in 2003, and another 84 last year.

But despite both being leg spinners he and Warney, who bowled beautifully to get us going against Gloucestershire last week, are different types of bowler.

Both will be big dangers but Mushie, who I first faced several years ago when playing for the Australian academy against Pakistan, does not turn his leg break as prodigiously as Warney, who gives the ball far more of a rip.

As a left hander, Mushie will look to bowl plenty of wrong 'uns at me and get the ball spinning away from my bat but he is also good at getting the ball to skid on.

A lot of his wickets are bowled, lbw and bat-pad catches.

He likes to catch batsmen on the crease and get them to play across the line by relying on subtle variations and he bowls a much straighter line than Warney, who tends to get more nicks to first slip.

Mushie will have played against Warney several times for Pakistan against Australia and I remember plenty of Aussies getting out to him when he was playing Test cricket.

We'll certainly have to be on our guard against him, but Sussex are a good side. They finished last season very strongly after a slow start in defence of the title they won in 2003, and I know that Murray Goodwin will be a threat for them with the bat.

I used to play with Murray at Western Australia, which is now Sean Ervine's state. He's very strong off the back foot.

He's quite short in height and loves width so we're going to have to bowl tight and not give him the chance to cut and pull.

Murray's got a great sense of humour but hopefully he won't have too much to smile about this week. I'm sure Warney will have a plan against him.

But it is not just him we'll have to look out for. Sussex bat right down the order, they have dangerous stroke players with the likes of Tim Ambrose and Matthew Prior. James Kirtley gets a lot of wickets at good pace, while Robin Martin-Jenkins toils away.

Read KAT - Simon Katich's weekly page in the Daily Echo every Wednesday.