Euro T20 Slam and European Cricket League

[The Speaker]

The boards of Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands today confirmed that the rumoured European T20 franchise league will indeed kick off this season, with the six-team competition running from the 30th of August to the 22nd of September, hosted across all three countries.

The new competition will see two franchises from each of the countries, based in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, competing in a double round-robin leading into semi finals. Squads will comprise a minimum of nine domestic players and up to seven overseas, with a minimum of six domestic players in the playing XI.

The competition is sanctioned under the auspices of Cricket Ireland, but is nonetheless the first multi-board collaborative franchise T20 league of its kind. Though in some respects it resembles the Scottish-Dutch North Sea Pro-Series which ran from 2014-2016 and was initially envisaged as a fully professional competition also including the Irish Interpro sides, but the project drew little attention external attention and eventually withered away for lack of funding.

Conversely, the new league has the backing and participation of an ICC Full member in Ireland, and looks to be on firmer footing financially - the initial agreement with sponsors and partners GS Holding and Woods Entertainment running for ten years.

https://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-ne...etherlands-to-play-in-new-european-t20-league

With the news the other day that the ICC is strongly considering limiting the number of T20 leagues players can participate in each year, this will be an interesting addition to the calendar. Supported by the same group running the show in Canada as well, so funding shouldn't be an issue for the time being.

Aberdeen might be a bit disappointed not to get a team, given that Mannofield Park was for many years the main ground in Scotland, but The Grange seems to be set up as the home of Scottish cricket for some time, while Titwood has also hosted matches before and serves a bigger city. I imagine the other home grounds will be Malahide (Dublin), Stormont (Belfast), VRA (Amsterdam) and Hazelaarweg (Rotterdam), although The Hague would have to be in with a chance.

Unlike the tournaments in HK, UAE and Canada, this will probably have official List A status due to the involvement of Ireland as a full member. Also unlike Canada in particular, this will have more stringent local player requirements.

 

[The Speaker]

Title edited to reflect the official name of the league. Edinburgh and Glasgow have been confirmed as the homes for the two Scottish teams.

 

[eth-dog]

Good concept. Go Belfast!

Question, Northern Irish players, do they go to Ireland or England?

 

[The Speaker]

Good concept. Go Belfast!

Question, Northern Irish players, do they go to Ireland or England?

The Irish team represents players in both the Republic and the United Kingdom, which is why it's not called a national team. England represents players in England and Wales so it too is not called a national team. Scotland is for Scots, and is a national team.

 

[The Speaker]

One wag has suggested on Twitter that this tournament is primarily aimed at the Indian betting market. Given the way it's been promoted, it isn't hard to see why.

The teams are not playing home and away. Instead, the league is divided into three sections, moving from one country to the next. Half the teams will never play in their own city, because games are only being played at Malahide, VRA and The Grange. The names of the teams are pretty much taken from the other domestic leagues, with totally non-European names like Giants, Titans, Rhinos, Chiefs and Rocks - the last name being Kings, which is also in every IPL name ever. The announcement was done in Indian primetime, with the special guests being Wasim Akram, Dilip Vengsarkar and a Bollywood actress.

The kicker is that the official account has been giving only vaguely comprehensible tweets like this:



It doesn't seem to be a scam or anything, but it's clearly not exactly 'homegrown' either (another tweet is geotagged as being from Mumbai).

 

[big_e]

Many of the associate and European cricket repoters have been scathing about it, and it does look a bit amateurish. The first advertising for it used a red ball, for instance.

 

[The Speaker]

Two months on and their social media hasn't gotten any better, to the point that it makes the whole competition look very shambolic, despite having a big old player draft for their brother competition, the Global T20 Canada, not that long ago with plenty of money being splashed around. The owners of the competition don't appear to be problematic, but the whole point of having a social media profile is to build interest in the event, and they are failing to do that in the biggest way: getting people to know about the event.

Until a couple of days ago, their website was even running loren ipsum team pages. They've also had to go away and try something else for the Edinburgh Rocks logo, after it was spotted as being one of the first images that came up in Google for generic logos.

 

[augiewaz]

I live in Rotterdam and was a bit excited by this thinking I could see some decent cricket and some good former players running around but after having had a quick look at what it really is, I wont bother.

Great opportunity that is being wasted

 

[The Speaker]

I live in Rotterdam and was a bit excited by this thinking I could see some decent cricket and some good former players running around but after having had a quick look at what it really is, I wont bother.

Great opportunity that is being wasted

Yes and no. I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of the play is actually quite good - the GT20 Canada certainly was. It's just that their promotion of it is a mess.

 

[SirBont]

Draft on tonight At 7pm on Facebook

 

[eth-dog]

Have they had priority signings at all?

 

[The Speaker]

Draft has begun, here's some of the absolute quality coverage the social media team is giving us

 

[The Speaker]

Not sure what Dublin's doing, they passed on their pick this round, and then after coming back around to them they were still deliberating before picking someone even I haven't heard of, South African Corbin Bosch, with a less-than-stellar T20 record.

Corbin Bosch Profile - Cricket Player South Africa | Stats, Records, Video

Read about Corbin Bosch cricket player from South Africa profile, stats, rankings, records, videos, photos at ESPNcricinfo

www.espncricinfo.com

 

[The Speaker]

Either Dublin used up their money on their first few internationals and/or they're saving up for the domestic players, because they went Eoin Morgan, Babar Azam, Mohammad Amir, then Harry Gurney and Dan Christian, followed up with Robert Frylinck (?) and Corbin Bosch (???) and then skipped both their supplementary international picks, the only team to do so.

 

[SirBont]

I hate it so many players don't get picked up they are so dumb honestly I can stand it How the * does fizz not get picked up his a gun honestly dumb

 

[SirBont]

Half the players are knowy over some guns hate it

 

[The Speaker]

Final squads:

Amsterdam Knights
Imran Tahir (SA), Shane Watson (Aus), Ben Cutting (Aus), Ahmed Shehzad (Pak), Hasan Ali (Pak), Sikandar Raza (Zim), Alzarri Joseph (WI), Varun Chopra (Eng), Saad bin Zafar (Can), Tobias Wesee, Roelof van der Merwe, Brandon Glover, Ben Cooper, Paul van Meekeren, Philippe Boiseevain, Wesley Barresi, Sikander Zulfiqar, Tonny Staal, Mark O'Donnell (Coach)

Rotterdam Rhinos
Rashid Khan (Afg), Luke Ronchi (NZ), Fakhar Zaman (Pak), Samit Patel (Eng), Shaheen Afridi (Pak), Hardus Viljoen (SA), Peter Trego (Eng), Anwar Ali (Pak), Max O'Dowd, Pieter Seelaar, Scott Edwards, Fred Klaasen, Shane Snater, Stephan Myburgh, Saqib Zulfiqar, Vivian Kingma, Bas de Leede, Herschelle Gibbs (Coach)

Glasgow Giants
Dale Steyn (SA), Brendon McCullum (NZ), Ravi Bopara (Eng), Usman Shinwari (Pak), Moises Henriques (Aus), Qais Ahmed (Afg), Henrich Klassen (SA), JJ Smuts (SA), George Munsey, Richie Berrington, Alasdair Evans, Safyaan Sharif, Matthew Cross, Tom Sole, Scott Cameron, Hamza Tahir, Michael Jones, Lance Klusener (Coach)

Edinburgh Rocks
Martin Guptill (NZ), Chris Lynn (Aus), Corey Anderson (NZ), Matt Henry (NZ), Tymal Mills (Eng), Tabraiz Shamsi (SA), Anton Devcich (SA), Waqar Salamkheil (Afg), Dwaine Pretorius (SA), Calum MacLeod, Kyle Coetzer, Mark Watt, Michael Leask, Gavin Main, Adrian Meill, Dylan Budge, Craig Wallace, Oliver Hairs, Mark Ramprakash (Coach)

Dublin Chiefs
Eoin Morgan (Eng), Babar Azam (Pak), Mohammad Amir (Pak), Harry Gurney (Eng), Dan Christian (Aus), Robert Frylinck (SA), Corbin Bosch (SA), Andy Balbirnie, Kevin O'Brien, George Dockrell, Lorcan Tucker, Simi Singh, Tyrone Kane, Gareth Delaney, Harry Tector, Josh Little, Dan Vettori (Coach)

Belfast Titans
Shahid Afridi (Pak), JP Duminy (SA), Mohammed Nawaz (Pak), Luke Wright (Eng), Colin Ingram (SA), Mitchell McClenaghan (NZ), Aaron Summers (Aus), Muhammed Ilyas (Pak), Paul Stirling, Gary Wilson, Mark Adair, Boyd Rankin, Craig Young, Andrew McBrine, Stuart Thompson, Greg Thompson, Shane Getkate, Ian Pont (Coach)

There are some question marks over the bigger internationals, in terms of dual commitments with the Vitality Blast.

 

[SirBont]

Also so many questions over some of the players not been picked up too in my book

 

[The Speaker]

 

[SirBont]

I don't get it, Is it because the local player don't have photo

 

[The Speaker]

I don't get it, Is it because the local player don't have photo

Yes. The local player 'draft' section was entirely predetermined, so it really shouldn't have been very hard for them to get their pictures.

 

[The Victorian]

will it be on fox?

 

[big_e]

will it be on fox?

Apparently yes.

Euro T20 Slam 2019 Live Streaming & TV Channel - CricketZine

Euro T20 Slam 2019 Live Streaming & TV Channel, Live Telecast, Broadcasting Rights Star Sports likely to broadcast live coverage of Euro T20 Slam 2019 in India and its subcontinent (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, and Nepal) countries; all matches streamed live on Hotstar digital...

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[Ekomaira]

there's cricket on atm, European Cricket League, guessing this is it? although this is only 10 overs

commentary is ridiculous haha

maximuuuuuuuuuuuuum

 

[The Speaker]

there's cricket on atm, European Cricket League, guessing this is it? although this is only 10 overs

commentary is ridiculous haha

maximuuuuuuuuuuuuum

Nope, the ECL is an exhibition tournament in La Manga between the table-topping teams in various European club competitions.