GAVIN Hamilton, Dewald Nel and Fraser Watts are expected to take part in the marquee stages of the European Championships but Craig Wright is highly unlikely to recover from injury in time.

Those four were the only senior Scotland players, other than county professionals, omitted from the squad for the first wave of combat in Dublin against Denmark, Italy and Norway next week.

Captain Ryan Watson explained that Hamilton and Nel had been granted a break due to work commitments, while Watts also gets a break after touring the Americas, with the subsidiary benefit that "a couple of other players can come in and make a claim for selection" in games that the Scots should win comfortably.

Calum MacLeod can thus be viewed as a straight swap for Nel, Sean Weeraratna comes in for Wright while Omer Hussain and Gregor Maiden profit from the absence of Hamilton and Watts.

Wright's prospects of a comeback are no clearer than they were a week ago, simply because his commitment to coaching Scotland under-17s in Belfast has delayed a scan on his troublesome back. The scan will take place on Monday, and Wright said yesterday: "After that we will know whether there is anything seriously wrong that could be made worse by me playing cricket.

"If not, then it will probably be a case of taking painkillers and grinning and bearing it. But the European Championships look very unlikely for me, simply because I won't have played any cricket by then. The Twenty20 Qualifier is a more realistic target."

Wright's likely absence from the final match of the Europeans on July 31 will come as a fillip to an Irish side seeking revenge for defeat to their rivals in Aberdeen and replenished by the promise that William Porterfield, Eoin Morgan and Niall O'Brien will all play in the one-day internationals at Clontarf.

Scotland have not yet announced whether Poonia will be available for the same games. He will hope to be selected for the round of county championship games starting on Wednesday, July 30 – from which O'Brien and Porterfield have ruled themselves out, because they do not want to risk missing the Twenty20 opener between the Celtic rivals on the Saturday. Morgan's Middlesex have no game that week, so Ireland will be bursting with quality in the top order.

For the Scots, the most likely outcome seems that Poonia will play for Warwickshire during the week (presuming he keeps his place) and join the Twenty20 jamboree a day late.

Scotland (v Denmark Jul 25, Italy Jul 26, Norway Jul 28): Ryan Watson (captain, Forfarshire); Richie Berrington, Sean Weeraratna (both Greenock); John Blain (Rotherham); Gordon Drummond (Watsonians); Gordon Goudie (West of Scotland); Majid Haq, Omer Hussain (Ferguslie); Calum MacLeod (Warwickshire); Gregor Maiden, Neil McCallum (Grange); Glenn Rogers (Stenhousemuir); Qasim Sheikh (Clydesdale); Colin Smith (Aberdeenshire).