30 teams will be participating in the 2022 edition of the European Cricket League (ECL), as confirmed by league founder Daniel Weston in an exclusive interview with Emerging Cricket on the EC Facebook Live show.
A flurry of announcements has been released in recent weeks, adding five new nations to the roster ahead of the 2022 event (Croatia, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Bulgaria), in addition to the fifteen nations already represented, but Weston went on to add that another nine nations would be added to the ECL before the 2022 edition.
Speaking about the expansion, Weston said “There’s going to be another nine countries added to the ECL in 2022, so there’s five that have been announced, and another nine that are going to be announced in the not too distant future, which will take us to 29 domestic champions and the reigning king (the 2021 ECL champions) in 2022. So a 30 team format.
“Projects like this are all about inclusion, and we want to include more and more and more.”
The ECL, the ‘Champions League of European Cricket’ was launched in 2019, with the domestic champions clubs of 8 European nations represented in 3-day T10 tournament at La Manga in Spain, with Dutch club V.O.C. Rotterdam claiming the inaugural title. The 2020 edition was set to expand to 16 teams from 15 nations but was later cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The second running will now take place in 2021 at the same venue and with the same nations represented.
With 33 members of ICC Europe, ranging from England to Israel, it means that nearly every European cricket club will have a pathway to being ECL champions starting with domestic competitions in 2021, and culminating in the 2022 ECL final.
In the extended interview, Weston also spoke about the challenges of increasing anti-corruption measures, his reflections on the 2019 European Cricket League, the inclusive and democratic nature of cricket clubs, and plans for the future of the Dream11 European Cricket Series.
Speaking about the latter, Weston went on to say “We essentially don’t have a day free on our calendar where we don’t have cricket streamed on ecn.cricket from now until mid-December”
The full interview can be found on the Emerging Cricket YouTube channel:
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