HAMPSHIRE will play Australia in a behind-closed-doors friendly at Bournemouth's Chapel Gate sports ground on Friday as Michael Clarke and co prepare for their ICC Champions Trophy opener against the USA on Monday.

The match will be a 50 overs-a-side affair and starts at 10.15 am but director of cricket Tim Tremlett has warned that fans may be turned away at the gate.

Tremlett said: "It's behind closed doors because if we make any financial gain as a club other first class counties will be up in arms because it's not 'our game', like those played at the Rose Bowl.

"Shane Warne will not be playing and we will probably have a couple of Australians playing for us so everyone gets a game."

Clarke, meanwhile, returns to the Rose Bowl next Monday - playing down comparisons with Wayne Rooney.

Clarke is expected to bat at number seven for his country when he wins his 32nd one-day cap against the USA at the Rose Bowl on Monday.

The 23-year-old is considered the brightest batting talent Down Under after scoring 858 runs at 40.85 (and at a strike rate of 89.56) since making his debut against England in Adelaide in January 2003.

He may not have made his Test debut yet but still signed a $1.25m deal with Slazenger - the bat manufacturers who snapped him up as a 13-year-old - shortly before arriving in England for his first season with Hampshire.

Now he is preparing to help Australia win the only tournament yet to escape their grasp when he makes his ICC Champions Trophy debut at a ground he knows well.

The Champions Trophy is the second biggest tournament in world cricket after the World Cup.

But Clarke reckons comparisons with Rooney, the best young player at Euro 2004, are wide of the mark.

He said: "I get nothing like the attention that Wayne Rooney has to put up with.

"You do get a few people coming up, generally the cricket supporters who come up and say 'hello', but I can go wherever I need to go to get my privacy, unlike someone like Warney, who should have been a movie star."

Clarke scored his maiden one day international ton against a weak Zimbabwe side in July.

But his most impressive performance to date was last November against India at Calcutta in the final of the TVS Cup when he struck an unbeaten 39 and took two wickets.

"That's my best memory of international cricket so far.

"The TVS Cup is a very tough competition and beating India over there in their own back yard is something we were all proud of," he said.

"I'll never forget that, it was a great tournament.

"The Champions Trophy is also a big event and more importantly it's a tournament that Australia have never won so all the guys are very keen and are looking forward to it."

Clarke recently helped Australia win a triangular tournament in Amsterdam involving Pakistan and India - and he scored a run-a-ball 31 in the 10-run win against Pakistan at Lord's last weekend - but the USA will provide something of an unknown quantity while New Zealand are also in their group.

Hampshire Cricket and the Daily Echo have teamed up to offer a pair of tickets for Monday's ICC Champions Trophy match between Australia and the USA.

Please e-mail your answer to the following question to: echosport@soton-echo.co.uk by noon on Thursday, 9 September, leaving your name, address and contact telephone number.

You must be able to collect the tickets from our head office in Redbridge on Friday.

Q: Who are the two players to have played for Hampshire this season who are both in Australia's ICC Champions Trophy squad?