DURHAM coach Geoff Cook is unhappy about Warwickshire being allowed to go into the championship match starting at Edgbaston today with their two Irishmen, Will Porterfield and Boyd Rankin, playing only the first two days.

They have to link up with their Irish team-mates on Thursday for two one-day games against Pakistan at the weekend and Warwickshire will be allowed to nominate replacements for them.

This has applied with players involved in England squads for several years, but has now been extended to include Scotland, Ireland and the Netherlands.

Warwickshire discovered that only last week and Cook was surprised to hear about it, saying: "The ECB have done a lot of good things in recent years, but things like this are a threat to what they are trying to do.

"We should always try to retain the integrity of games rather than have players coming in and out of them."

The teams are level on points in joint second place behind Lancashire and Warwickshire can be expected to produce a pitch as good as the one on which they comfortably overhauled Durham's 286 for three in Sunday's CB 40 League game.

They certainly won't want to risk a repeat of their last home championship game against Worcestershire, when they had eight points deducted because of a poor pitch.

Although they have appealed against the decision, Worcestershire coach Steve Rhodes felt they were lucky to get off so lightly.

With Chris Woakes ruled out by sore shins, Warwickshire's attack will start to look a little thin without Rankin.

Even without England pair Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott, who have played in their last two games, their strength is in the batting. But after scoring 429 at Emirates Durham last month, they were dismissed for 137 in their second innings and Durham won by eight wickets.

Graham Onions took four wickets in that innings but is not available today because the England hierarchy want him to rest after bowling for England Lions on the fourth day of their match against Sri Lanka on Sunday.

Durham can at least be sure that he will be at full throttle for the visit of Lancashire, starting on Sunday, when they finally hope to re-unite him with Steve Harmison.

Mitch Claydon and Gareth Breese have been added to the squad which won at Worcester last week.