European Cricket League

The European Cricket League, also dubbed "the Champions League of European Cricket"[1] is a cricket tournament with a goal to develop and popularize cricket in the European continent.[1] It is played in the T-10 format among clubs all around Europe that are champions in domestic tournaments in their respective countries.[1] The inaugural tournament in 2019 took place in La Manga Club, Spain with 8 clubs participating.[2] VOC Rotterdam were crowned the champions who defeated SG Findorff by 101 runs in the final.[3] It was viewed on live TV & streamed around the world in over 120 countries in more than 140 million households by over 40 broadcasters.[4] The 2020 edition takes place from 31 May to 7 June 2020 and features 16 champion teams from 15 countries.[5]

European Cricket League
European Cricket League Logo
Countries Belgium
 Denmark
 England
 Finland
 France
 Germany
 Ireland
 Italy
 Netherlands
 Norway
 Romania
 Russia
 Scotland
 Spain
 Sweden
AdministratorEuropean Cricket Network
Format10 overs
First edition2019
Latest edition2019
Next edition2020
Tournament formatGroup Stage and Knockout
Number of teams16
Current champion VOC Rotterdam
Most successful VOC Rotterdam (1 title)
2020 European Cricket League
WebsiteOfficial website

Founder

The league was founded in 2018 by Daniel Weston with eight official International Cricket Council member federations on board, namely Russia, Netherlands, France, Italy, Denmark, Romania, Spain and Germany for the first tournament in 2019. Event organisers have since increased the number of federations and eligible teams for future tournaments.[6][7]

ECL Board

Fellow ECL board members Frank Leenders and Thomas Klooz were both part of the marketing team of the UEFA Champions League. Leenders and Klooz both joined TEAM Marketing (Team Event and Media Marketing)[8] in 1992 and played significant roles in the rebranding of the UEFA Champions League during its formative years. Leenders went on to become Managing Director and a member of the Board of Directors, while Klooz rose to become CEO of TEAM and was also on the Board of Directors.

ECL CEO Roger Feiner is a former Director of Broadcasting at FIFA from 1999-2002, responsible for the global TV rights and TV broadcasting of the FIFA Confederation Cup in Mexico in 1999 and the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan/Korea amongst others.[9][10][11][12]

The European Cricket League has no connection with the Euro T20 Slam, a proposed tournament in Europe which was postponed a few weeks after the inaugural staging of the European Cricket League.

Seasons and winners

2019 - The inaugural ECL (ECL19) was won by V.O.C. Rotterdam of the Netherlands

2020 - ECL20 Was cancelled due to the growing concerns sound the outbreak of COVID-19

Season Winner Runner-up Win Margin in Final Most Runs Most Wickets

2019		 VOC Rotterdam
222/0 (10 overs)		 SG Findorff
121/9 (10 overs)		 101 Runs Scott Edwards (233) Syed Sherazi (9)

2020		 Cancelled

References
  1. "European Cricket League – About". ECL. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  2. "First European Cricket League Set for Major Global Audience". Cricket World. 19 July 2019. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  3. Daniel Beswick (31 July 2019). "VOC Rotterdam claim 1st ECL title". Emerging Cricket. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  4. "ecl.cricket". European Cricket League. European Cricket League. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  5. Ronay, Barney (24 January 2020). "Swardeston's cricket dream comes true with place in continental league". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  6. "BBC World Service - Stumped, Can the 'Champions League' of club cricket compete with the IPL?". BBC.
  7. "Tinder, cigars and tears: The making of the inaugural European Cricket League". www.thecricketer.com.
  8. "Home - TEAM". www.team.ch.
  9. "Football professionals join hands for the European Cricket League". July 27, 2019.
  10. InsideSport, Rajender Sharma for (July 20, 2019). "Faces behind Champions League of European Cricket".
  11. "Immigrants, cricket and Europe: Can one league unite a continent? - Times of India". The Times of India.
  12. "Roger Feiner is new Vice President Content Strategy at UPC Austria and upc cablecom". www.upc.ch.
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