Captain and fast bowler Ben Strachan is battling a back complaint while spinner Warren Dodd injured a hand at school and will definitely be out.

Led by Jaspal Bansal's knock of 97 the Cougars scored 208 on day one before Strachan struck late to leave Souths 1-10 in reply.

Nathan Finlay will resume on nine and will be joined at the crease by Shane Groen.

Strachan said his bowlers will have a big job to do, especially taking the expected top temperature of 41 degrees into account.

"Both sides probably are going into day two thinking they are in with a chance to win the game," Strachan said.

"When I won the toss last week I was hoping we'd make a minimum of 250 but the track was a bit deceptive and kept low and we ended up with 208.

"Ideally we would have got two or three wickets in that late spell but we got one and it was important that we at least got that because we now know we have runs on the board and we're on our way with the ball."

Souths' batting lineup has been poor so far in 2012/13 but with quality players like Mat Finlay, Tim Berry and John Colwell still to come to the crease they have the potential to make light work of 208.

"Obviously there's those guys but they also have Jack Wells and Adam Carr that are handy young batsmen that can score some runs for them," Strachan said.

"That means the pressure will be on our bowlers to hit the right areas and put pressure on them.

"They did that well last week so we have to come out and bowl the same way they did, if not better, in order to get the result."