Cricket Ireland this morning named their squad of 13 for the forthcoming RSA Challenge One Day International with England at Stormont on Thursday 27 August.
There are no surprises in the line-up as coach Phil Simmons has stuck with the players who have performed so successfully during his tenure.
All the county players are fit and available, so there are returns for Boyd Rankin and Niall O’Brien, who weren’t involved in the drawn Intercontinental Cup fixture with Scotland in Aberdeen on Thursday.
John Mooney joins the squad for the ODIs with Scotland at the weekend, and is also included in the Belfast fixture.
Phil Simmons is happy with the squad saying: 'I’ve everyone available and I always maintain that with a full strength squad, we are a match for any country on our day. We’ve shown that with our results in the past, and we’ll continue to do so in the future.
'I don’t know if this is the best Ireland team ever, but we have a great bunch of talented cricketers who are playing with great confidence at the moment. We have got great depth in our batting, and plenty of options in the bowling as well.
'If we play well, then certainly we can beat England. They will be favourites for sure, but cricket has a nice habit of throwing up surprises.'
Ireland captain William Porterfield is already excited about the prospect of leading his side out.
He said: 'It’ll be a dream come true for me to step out over the boundary ropes in front of a packed crowd. I was 12th man when England last played here in 2006, so in three years I’ve gone from being a squad player to captaining my country, and leading from the front with the bat.
'There’s sure to be a wonderful atmosphere on the day, and it’s been good to hear that the tickets are now virtually sold out. With the crowd behind us, we can give England a real competitive game.'
There are still some tickets available for the game, which can be purchased on Ticketmaster.
The action at Stormont gets underway at 10.45am. For further information about the game and Irish cricket, visit www.irishcricket.org
The Ireland squad in full is as follows:
William Porterfield (capt) (Gloucestershire)
Andre Botha (North County)
Alex Cusack (Clontarf)
Trent Johnston (Railway Union)
John Mooney (North County)
Kyle McCallan (Waringstown)
Kevin O’Brien (Railway Union)
Niall O’Brien (Northamptonshire)
Boyd Rankin (Warwickshire)
Paul Stirling (Carrickfergus)
Regan West (Civil Service North)
Andrew White (Instonians)
Gary Wilson (Surrey)
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