European Cricket League

European Cricket League
European Cricket League Logo
AdministratorEuropean Cricket Network
FormatT10
First edition2019
Latest edition2024
Next edition2025
Tournament formatGroup Stage and Knockout
Number of teams31
Current championEngland Hornchurch
Most successfulEngland Hornchurch
Netherlands VOC Rotterdam
Spain Pak I Care Badalona
France Dreux Ville Royale (1 title each)
WebsiteEuropean Cricket Network

The European Cricket League (ECL), is a Ten10 cricket league contested by the cricket clubs of European countries. It was formed with a goal to develop and popularise cricket in the European continent.[1] The league was founded in 2018.

The league 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]

There have been four editions of the ECL, with each winner having only one title. The first edition took place in 2019, with VOC Rotterdam winning the inaugural championship. In 2022, Pak I Care Badalona emerged as the champions. Dreux Ville Royale claimed victory in 2023 while Hornchurch secured their title in 2024.

History

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.[5][6]

The 2020 edition was scheduled to be once again held at the La Manga Club in Spain, this time with 16 participants (up from 8 in 2019, with the additions of the Belgian, English, Finnish, Irish, Norwegian, Romanian, Scottish, and Swedish National Champions), but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spain.[7] The 2021 edition was then scheduled to once again be held at the La Manga Club, but was again cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

ECL22 saw a massive expansion for the competition, seeing champions from 963 different club teams (plus the previous winners VOC Rotterdam) invited to take part. Bet2Ball was announced as the Title Sponsor, while Cryptocurrency Kiba Inu was announced to be sponsoring all 30 teams' jerseys.

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 to 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]

Seasons and winners

Season Winner Runner-up Win Margin Most Runs Most Wickets
Spain 2019 Netherlands VOC Rotterdam
222/0 (10 overs) 		Germany SG Findorff
121/9 (10 overs) 		101 Runs Netherlands Scott Edwards (233) Spain Syed Siiwiherazi (9)
Spain 2022 Spain Pak I Care Badalona

84/3 (9 overs)

England Tunbridge Wells

81/7 (10 overs)

7 Wickets England Chris Williams (477) Spain Muhammad Babar (23)
Spain 2023 France Dreux

131/5 (10 overs)

England Hornchurch

69/8 (10 overs)

62 Runs Republic of Ireland Jason Van Der Merwe (641) France Tabish Bhatti (27)
Spain 2024 England Hornchurch 95/3 (8.5 overs) Jersey Old Victorians 93/5 (10 overs) 7 Wickets JerseyJonty Jenner (603) England Harry Hankins (24)
Spain 2025

References

  1. ^ a b "European Cricket League – About". ECL. Retrieved 11 February 2020.[permanent dead link]
  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. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  5. ^ "BBC World Service - Stumped, Can the 'Champions League' of club cricket compete with the IPL?". BBC. April 2019.
  6. ^ "Tinder, cigars and tears: The making of the inaugural European Cricket League". www.thecricketer.com.
  7. ^ "CORONAVIRUS FORCES ECL MANAGEMENT TO DELAY ECL20 IN SPAIN". European Cricket Network. 2020-03-18. Retrieved 2022-03-19.
  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". Archived from the original on August 6, 2019. Retrieved February 11, 2020.
  11. ^ "Immigrants, cricket and Europe: Can one league unite a continent? - Times of India". The Times of India. 29 July 2019.
  12. ^ "Roger Feiner is new Vice President Content Strategy at UPC Austria and upc cablecom". www.upc.ch.
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