TONY COTTEY faces his old Glamorgan team-mates tomorrow declaring: "I'm not under any extra pressure."

Sussex's diminutive middle order batsman returns to the county he left in the winter after scoring over 10,000 runs in a 12-year career.

The 32-year-old, who helped Glamorgan to their Championship success in 1997, is relishing the reunion at Sophia Gardens.

"It will be strange going into the visiting dressing room and not the home, but the big thing as far as I'm concerned is not to make too big a deal of it," said Cottey.

"I really want to do well against them but I don't feel any extra pressure. It would be a dream come true to get a hundred on what was my home patch for so long, but I want to get a century for Sussex, not a century against Glamorgan."

Cottey, who signed a five-year contract in the winter, will renew acquaintances with former team-mates he last played against as a teenager.

"I haven't played against Steve Watkin, Adrian Dale or Steve James since I was 13 and the last time I was on opposing sides to Robert Croft was when he was playing for Wales under-16s against Glamorgan seconds.

"I was best man at Crofty's wedding and we roomed together for eight or nine years. He's one of several good friends I've still got down there, it will be strange playing against them but the most important thing is that we get a victory and get our own season up and running."

Cottey won't be the only player facing his old county.

Keith Newell moved in the opposite direction after rejecting a new contract from Sussex at the end of last season and signed a two-year deal with Glamorgan.

Sussex have named an unchanged 12 for the third successive Championship game and Umer Rashid, who took 3-14 in the National League win over Derbyshire on Sunday, is in line for a recall, if, as expected, the pitch takes spin.

Croft plays his last game before linking-up with England's World Cup squad while slow left-armer Dean Cosker, a team-mate of Sussex's Jason Lewry on the England A tour during the winter, is added to Glamorgan's squad.

Sussex: Montgomerie, Peirce, Adams, DiVenuto, Cottey, Rao, Martin-Jenkins, Rashid, Edwards, Humphries, Kirtley, Robinson.

Glamorgan (from): James, Evans, Dale, Maynard, Newell, Croft, Shaw, Cosker, Harrison, Thomas, Jones, Watkin.

SUSSEX open their 2nd XI Championship campaign against Gloucestershire at Hove tomorrow (11am).

SUSSEX'S Championship match with Essex at Eastbourne will now start a day earlier on Monday, August 31.

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