Scotland’s squad to play in the ECC European Championships includes Warwickshire youngster Navdeep Poonia, who has been released by his county to play in the One-Day International against Ireland At Ayr Cricket Club on August 5.

Glasgow-born Poonia was originally selected to make his senior Scotland debut against Pakistan last month, but his availability was withdrawn as he had been picked for a county game. Since then, the ICC have ruled that county players must be released to play for Associate Member countries in official ODIs against Full Member countries, although not necessarily for matches between Associate Members. However, Poonia has been made available for the one game against Ireland and will therefore make his debut at last.

The other 14 players in the selected squad contain no particular surprises, with several contracted county players involved, namely John Blain (Yorkshire), Kyle Coetzer (Durham) and Gordon Goudie (Middlesex).

National coach Peter Drinnen will use Scotland’s four matches, against Ireland, the Netherlands (August 6), Denmark (August 8) and Italy (August 9) to refine the selection options in the context of a tournament environment. “We want to top the final table, of course,” he said. “Scotland’s international ranking depends on a continuous demonstration that we are where we are on merit.”

The ECC European Championships are in a state of transition having become part of the ICC’s complex World Cricket League format. There are five teams in Division One and eight in Division Two, playing thirty matches in the space of seven days at 12 west of Scotland club grounds. Full details of the programme will be released later in the month.

Scotland squad (for European Championships, August 3-9): C Wright (Greenock, captain), John Blain (Yorkshire), Kyle Coetzer (Durham), Gordon Goudie (Middlesex), Gavin Hamilton, Paul Hoffmann (Uddingston), Douglas Lockhart (West of Scotland), Ross Lyons (Clydesdale), Neil MacRae (Grange), Neil McCallum (Grange), Dewald Nel (Greenock), Navdeep Poonia (Warwickshire), Colin Smith (Aberdeenshire), Ryan Watson (Forfarshire), Fraser Watts (Greenock).