Joyce drafted in to replace Morgan

Ireland have made just one change to their 12-man squad for their Intercontinental Cup match against Bermuda which gets underway next Thursday at Clontarf, with Dominick Joyce replacing Eoin Morgan who has commitments with Middlesex.

"I was pleased with our form during the drawn game with Scotland (Ireland gained 9 points by virtue of a first-innings lead in the rain affected game)," Phil Simmons, the Ireland coach, said, "and we managed to put together two significant partnerships. The wicket was fairly placid, so it was a great effort by our bowlers on the first day, but they know they can do better than they showed on day two.

"Unfortunately we are without Eoin, but I like what I've seen in Dominick; although he's played a lot of cricket for Ireland, he's still only 26 and has his best years as a batsman in front of him."

Joyce, 26, brother of Ed, has played 69 times for Ireland, scoring 1518 runs at an average of 23 and is averaging over 50 in domestic cricket this season.

Ireland dominated their Intercontinental Cup fixture against Scotland last week at Belfast, responding powerfully to Scotland's 314 all out with 473 for 7. Andre Botha smacked a fine 186, his career-best, sharing in a 234-run stand with Alex Cusack who struck his maiden first-class hundred.

Bermuda, however, cannot claim to be in the same sort of form after slumping to an innings-and-44-run defeat to Netherlands.

Ireland squad Trent Johnston (capt), Andre Botha, Alex Cusack, Thinus Fourie, Dominick Joyce, Dave Langford-Smith, Kyle McCallan, Kevin O' Brien, Niall O' Brien (wk), Greg Thompson, William Porterfield, Andrew White