The Ireland team to play MCC in the annual three-day match at Eglinton on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week shows two changes, both enforced, compared to the side which lost to Shropshire in the NatWest game at Castle Avenue two weeks ago.
With Angus Dunlop and Ed Joyce ruled out because of business and examination commitments respectively, Paul Mooney and Andy Patterson come into the team. Mooney, the North County all-rounder, was 12th man against Shropshire.
In Dunlop's absence, the captaincy has gone to all-rounder Kyle McCallan of Cliftonville.
"With the visit of Zimbabwe coming up fast and given that we missed out on at least one, and possibly two, extra NatWest matches by losing to Shropshire, there really wasn't room to experiment with new players against the MCC," said national coach Ken Rutherford.
Ireland: K McCallan (Cliftonville) capt, B Archer (The Hills), G Brophy (Cliftonville/Free State) w/k, O Butler (Old Belvedere), G Cooke (Brigade), P Davy (Pembroke), M Dwyer (The Hills), P Gillespie (Strabane), D Heasley (Lisburn), P Mooney (North County), A Patterson (Cliftonville). 12th man: A McCoubrey (Ballymena).
MCC: T Pigott (Sussex/Surrey) capt, J Gray (Cheshire), S Warke (Woodvale), K Sedgbeer (Somerset), S Mohammed (Warwickshire), I Wrigglesworth (Victoria), K Williams (Trinidad/Tobago), J Batty (Yorkshire), D Kruis (Griqualand West), D Lees (Werneth CC), C Metson (Glamorgan).
