EC Roundup – 05 January 2025 – The EuroSlam is reborn?

Welcome to this week’s Emerging Cricket Roundup, condensing all the major news into one easy-to-digest place. In this week wrap:

Headlines

Myanmar sweep Bhutan

Singapore overcome Philippines

The EuroSlam is reborn?

Myanmar sweep Bhutan

Myanmar took a clean sweep of Bhutan in their five-match WT20I series. The visitors, who climbed to 38th on the ICC rankings at the conclusion of the series, were far from untested, however, winning the opening match on the final ball.

After a nervy victory to start, Myanmar grew into their game, taking more comfortable wins in the following matches. Generally low scoring, three players passed 100 runs over the five games: Zon Lin for Myanmar, Ngawang Choden and Dechen Wangmo for Bhutan. Tschering Zangmo (Bhu) and Theint Soe (Mya) shared the top of the wicket tally with 7 each.

Singapore overcome Philippines

The other bilateral series of the past fortnight was a more competitive affair, with Singapore winning the four-match series 2-1. After the first match was washed out, Singapore took a 2-0 lead, before the Philippines took the final match comfortably to narrow the margin.

Both sides benefited from the series on the WT20I rankings, Singapore rising one place to 64th whilst Philippines jumped up to 63rd after their 2nd WT20I win. Vinu Kumar (Sin) and Alex Smith (Phi) both passed the 100 run threshold, whilst Karri Gullem Keem topped the wickets tally with six.

The EuroSlam is reborn?

Emerging Cricket readers are likely to be familiar with the ill-fated Euro T20 Slam. First mooted for 2019, the franchise league set across Ireland, Scotland and Netherland was ‘postponed’ no fewer than six times. At long last some good news has been announced.

The ownership has been changed and the provisional tournament renamed to the Europe T20 Premier League, announced by Cricket Ireland on Saturday. Dates have been announced for the 15th July to 3rd August, though so far other details are lacking. The ETPL is nevertheless likely to follow the same model as the unsuccessful forerunning league.

Beyond the boundary

Nepal have announced their squad for the upcoming Women’s U19 T20 World Cup. Puja Mahato, hero of the Nepali’s victory over Pakistan last month, continues to lead the side. The squad is unchanged from that which took Nepal to 3rd in the Asia Cup, and the team will be looking for further success on their return to Malaysia.

Coming Up

A quiet week approaches in the emerging game, with no on-field action scheduled in the associate international arena. Nevertheless, fans can look forward to associate stars in the ongoing Bangladesh Premier League. Steven Taylor and George Munsey saw action in the first week for Rangpur Riders and Sylhet Strikers, respectively.