MAL Loye fired an impressive opening salvo for Lancashire at Old Trafford yesterday.

The former Northants man stroked a classy 81 in his first home innings for his new county in the one-day friendly against Durham, with Andy Flintoff and Chris Schofield also impressing as Lancashire cruised to a five-wicket win.

But Loye, whose arrival with Iain Sutcliffe from Leicester has really sharpened the competition for places at the top of the order, says he is not bothered whether he opens in the crunch Championship opener against Surrey at the Oval tomorrow.

"I've been asked this question a lot in my career because I alternated between opening and number three at Northampton," said the tall 30-year-old right-hander, who has an impressive top score of 322 not out.

"But I don't really mind where I bat in the top three. You're usually facing the new ball either way."

Lancashire's new batting order is a closely guarded secret ahead of the Surrey game.

The retirement of David Byas, Neil Fairbrother and Graham Lloyd has left them needing to find replacements at three and five, with Stuart Law settled at four and Flintoff set to go in at six at the Oval - and warming up impressively yesterday by smashing 84 from 72 balls, with eight fours and five sixes.

Loye and Sutcliffe have both been regular openers for their former counties, but last season Alec Swann and Mark Chilton established themselves as Lancashire's most reliable opening pair since Graeme Fowler and Gehan Mendis.

Surrey, red hot favourites to win their fourth Championship in five years, will be missing Alec Stewart and Azhar Mahmood, the Pakistani all-rounder who destroyed Lancashire at the Oval last year.

But they could still field 10 internationals with Mark Butcher cleared to play by England and Graham Thorpe, Mark Ramprakash, Ian Ward and Alex Tudor keen to make an early point to the selectors.