Paul Stirling: Grade 2C strain + knee niggles from T20 World Cup. Barry McCarthy: Left ACL injury, out for the year. Josh Little: Rib stress fracture. Gavin Hoey: Left side strain. Jordan Neill: Right shoulder muscle tear. Campher limitation*: Curtis Campher will play as batter only, managing return to bowling. Egan is a 32-year-old allrounder born in Perth and has a century from his only first-class game. His 120 won Strikers the Emerald Challenge earlier this week. Mayes (25) is a bowling allrounder with five first-class games. He took six wickets and scored 25 runs for Strikers in the same game. Liam McCarthy (24) is a bowling allrounder, who was born in South Africa and moved to Ireland in 2021. He has 19 wickets from six first-class games and has played for Ireland in four games across both white-ball formats. Wilson, the 19-year-old medium pacer, is the freshest face in the side, with one first-class game, 12 List A games and 13 T20s under his belt. Captain: Andrew Balbirnie leads for the 10th time in Tests. He’s played all 12 of Ireland’s Tests so far. Core: Mark Adair, Curtis Campher, Andrew McBrine, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker provide experience. Stirling and Hoey were part of Ireland's XI that took on Bangladesh in Mirpur last year, which is the last Test they played. Barry McCarthy had played the first Test in Sylhet. NZ squad: Full-strength led by Tom Latham. Kane Williamson, Devon Conway, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell with bat. Kyle Jamieson returns for first Test since Feb 2024, Will O’Rourke back. WTC context: NZ 2nd in World Test Championship 2025-27 with 77.78% points. Ireland context: Last played Tests in Bangladesh, Nov 2025, lost both. Ireland squad for New Zealand Test Andrew Balbirnie (Capt), Mark Adair, Curtis Campher, Cade Carmichael, Stephen Doheny, Jake Egan, Matthew Humphreys, Tom Mayes, Andrew McBrine, Liam McCarthy, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Reuben Wilson, Craig Young