Jamie Ritchie has been restored to Scotland’s starting XV for Saturday’s Calcutta Cup showdown with England a fortnight after being dropped from the squad altogether for the Guinness Six Nations home defeat by France.

The recently deposed captain is back in the side as one of three changes made by Gregor Townsend, with experienced duo Blair Kinghorn and Kyle Steyn returning to the back three.

Kyle Rowe, Harry Paterson and Matt Fagerson – all of whom started against Les Bleus – drop out of the squad altogether, with the bench unchanged.

Ritchie – who lost the captaincy to Finn Russell and Rory Darge earlier this year – started the first match of the Six Nations away to Wales before being left out against France, but the 27-year-old Edinburgh flanker is back in the number six jersey in place of Fagerson this weekend.

Toulouse full-back Kinghorn returns after missing the opening two matches with a knee injury sustained days before the championship began, while Glasgow wing Steyn – who started against Wales – is back in the mix after having to withdraw from the team on the morning of the France game when his wife went into labour.

Rowe, who started the first two matches in the absence of Kinghorn, has not made the squad this weekend, while 22-year-old Edinburgh back Paterson, who was drafted in at the last minute to start against France following Steyn’s withdrawal, is also out.

Scrum-half Ali Price has been handed a surprise start for Scotland’s World Cup Pool B qualification shootout with Ireland on Saturday, as regular number nine Ben White misses out on a place in the 23 altogether.

The 30-year-old Glasgow back made the number nine jersey his own for three years until losing his spot to the burgeoning White at the start of this year’s Six Nations.

But after scoring a try when a much-changed XV defeated Romania in Lille last Saturday, Price has remained in the team for this weekend’s Paris showdown.

White is not even listed among the substitutes, with c the replacement scrum-half.

Captain Jamie Ritchie returns to lead the team after going off with concussion in the first half of the Tonga match a fortnight ago.

Price in place of White is the only change to the team that started the match against South Africa on the opening weekend of the tournament.

The scrum-half had spoken in Nice earlier this week about how his improved maturity had helped him deal with losing his place just two years after being selected for British and Irish Lions duty.

But he now appears to have convinced Gregor Townsend that he is worthy of being pitched back into the thick of it for one of Scotland’s biggest games in years as they bid to get a bonus-point win over the Irish or deny their opponents a losing bonus in order to reach the quarter-finals.

Hamish Watson, another 2021 Lion who has fallen from prominence this year, has not made the 23 despite impressing against Romania last weekend.

Jamie Ritchie declared Scotland were “ready to go” ahead of the World Cup after a largely encouraging summer campaign ended with a 33-6 win over Georgia.

Gregor Townsend’s team head to France next weekend for the global showpiece on the back of three home wins – all after trailing at half-time – and a narrow defeat away to the host nation from their four warm-up matches.

Captain Ritchie is now relishing the prospect of leading the Scots into the tournament, with their first game against South Africa in Marseille on 10 September.

“I’m really chuffed but probably the predominant emotion now is excitement – we’re just ready to go,” he said.

“I feel we’ve built well. We’ve not had a perfect performance yet but for me that’s a positive thing because we know there’s one coming.

“I’m glad we had a little bit of a tough test in that first half against Georgia. We had to manage ourselves through that and then we stepped up in the second.”

Despite their first-half struggles throughout the summer, Scotland scored 15 tries in their four summer Tests against Italy, France (home and away) and Georgia, with 13 of them coming in the second half.

“Positive,” said Ritchie, when asked to sum up the warm-up campaign.

“I think we’ve shown that we can play really well, we’ve shown that we can come back from adversity, which I think is a really positive thing, and we’ve played some really good rugby.

“We’ve shown how we’ve grown over this period in terms of how we’ve wanted to build when we’ve had this extended period of time together and we’re really clear on how we want to play.

“It’s not been perfect but we’ve had more positive results and positive performances than not and we’re really excited for this first game.”

For all that Scotland go into the tournament in good fettle, their first opponents South Africa have sent out an ominous warning with back-to-back destructions of Wales and New Zealand over the past two weekends.

Ritchie insists his team – who watched the Boks’ 35-7 annihilation of the All Blacks on Friday together in their hotel – will learn from having seen how the world champions are going about their business in the lead-up to the tournament.

“The main thing for us is it’s been great learning for us to see what they might bring to a game,” he said.

“It’s pretty clear how they want to play and for us, we’re looking to exploit that and match them in certain areas so these games have been great for us to learn from them.

“They’ll be riding high off the back of them but we do well with an underdog tag and I’m really excited for it.”

Captain Jamie Ritchie is back in the Scotland starting XV for Saturday’s World Cup warm-up match against France in Saint-Etienne.

The inclusion of the skipper, who has missed the previous two Tests with a calf issue, represents one of six changes to the team that started last weekend’s 25-21 victory over Les Bleus.

There is no place in the squad, however, for Ben White, who was forced off in the first half last weekend with an ankle issue. The scrum-half is replaced in the number nine jersey by Ali Price.

On the wing, Kyle Steyn takes over from Darcy Graham, who has been given the weekend off after scoring tries in each of the previous two warm-up matches.

Veteran prop WP Nel, 37, will fill in for Zander Fagerson, who is suspended following his red card against the French last Saturday, while George Turner replaces fellow hooker Ewan Ashman.

There are two changes to the back three, with flankers Ritchie and Rory Darge coming in for Matt Fagerson and Hamish Watson.

Stuart McInally, Rory Sutherland, Javan Sebastian, Scott Cummings, Sam Skinner and Josh Bayliss are the six forwards named on the bench, while George Horne and Ollie Smith are the replacement backs.

Gregor Townsend is confident Scotland captain Jamie Ritchie will recover from injury in time for next weekend’s World Cup warm-up match away to France after sitting out this Saturday’s Test against Les Bleus at Murrayfield.

The Edinburgh flanker has sustained a minor calf strain and will play no part in this weekend’s match in Edinburgh, with stand-off Finn Russell handed the skipper’s armband in his absence.

However, Townsend is optimistic that Ritchie will be back in contention for the rematch against the French in Saint-Etienne the following Saturday.

“I would hope he will be back next week,” said the head coach. “He’s confident he will be back in full training next week.

“It was a calf strain that has required more time off. He got a scan on Tuesday just to make sure there was no more damage done, and it was felt that this week there was no need to push the injury.

“He’s confident he will be running by the weekend and back to full training next week.”

Talismanic stand-off Russell – who will join Bath from Racing 92 after the World Cup – will lead the national team for the first time, less than 10 months after being omitted from the initial squad for the autumn series.

Asked what has changed in the intervening period for the 30-year-old to go from outsider to leader, Townsend said: “Finn has played really well since he got back into the squad.

“He has always been a leader for us in terms of attack. He is older, has more experience and an opportunity has opened up where he’s the right man to lead us this week.

“It’s the right time to give him that opportunity, and it will be interesting to see how he goes. Being vice captain and our most important attack leader gives him a real confidence and I’m hoping that being captain gives him confidence too.

“The players that do most of the talking on the field are your 10, your captain and maybe one other player. Finn has certainly done that for us over the last couple of years.”

Townsend believes Russell is in his prime.

“He’s in really good physical shape and was when he came back in last November and during the Six Nations too,” he said.

“He’s hitting that sweet spot where, after playing the game for 10 years in that one position and playing against some of the best teams around, he has an understanding of where space might open up.

“If you’ve got that physical side right too, you can exploit those opportunities. That’s what he is doing. He’s really motivated about playing for Scotland and playing club rugby for the next few years.

“If you can get that mix for the next two or three years, and it’s important to note he is improving all the time, you’ve got one of the best players in the world in that position with us, which is great.”

Townsend has made 13 changes to his starting XV for this weekend’s clash with the French, restoring the majority of his big-hitters after fielding a largely experimental side for last Saturday’s win over Italy.

Ritchie and hooker George Turner are the only notable absentees from the starting line-up, with Ewan Ashman – capped seven times – the least established international in the line-up.

Townsend is hoping Scotland can show over the next two games that they have built on a strong performance in their 32-21 Six Nations defeat by France in Paris in February when they roared back from 19-0 down and threatened to pull off a famous victory.

“We want to show we are a better team than that day,” said Townsend. “I feel that what the players are showing in training is at a lot higher level than what we produced in the Six Nations. That gives us a lot of encouragement and excitement.

“We did play well and the character in the team was outstanding, but we didn’t finish off nearly enough opportunities to win the game. Three times we were over the try-line and didn’t score, and there were another four times where great creative play didn’t get rewarded.

“It’s great that France have committed to home and away fixtures like they did last time. It suits us that we were able to mix up our team last week and we now have two very tough Test matches home and away.”