Cricket Romania have announced that they will be hosting the Balkan Cup this week. The tournament will be contested as a four-match bilateral T20I series against their Balkan neighbours Bulgaria, after the Serbian national side was unfortunately unable to travel due to ongoing restrictions.
The opening match will be on Friday, with two matches to be played the following day, and a final game scheduled for Sunday. The Moara Vlasiei Ground in Ilfov County will be the venue for the ICC-approved series.
For the hosts, this will be the first international cricket since they made their T20I debut at the Continental Cup in August 2019, which was also contested at the Moara Vlasiei. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the cancellation of a proposed tour of Belgium, the postponement of the Europe qualifiers for the T20 World Cup, and also prevented Romania’s annual Continental Cup from taking place this year. Pavel Florin and his teammates will be keen to get back to international action.
Bulgaria arrive in Romania hoping to reverse their fortunes after a 2–0 series defeat against Malta last month. Prakash Mishra leads the developing national team as they continue their mission to build a strong team while also gradually integrating more native players.
Balkan Cup squads
Romania: Ramesh Satheesan (captain), Waqar Abbasi, Asif Bevinje, Petre Danci, Pavel Florin, Laurentiu Gharasim, Marian Gharasim, Imran Haider, Ijaz Hussain, Aftab Kayani, Gohar Manan, Patras Masih, Satvik Nadigotla, Sivakumar Periyalwar, Vasu Saini, Abdul Shakoor, Sami Ullah, Shantanu Vashisht, Cosmin Zavoiu
Bulgaria: Prakash Mishra (captain), Hristo Lakov, Agagyul Ahmadhel, Sulaiman Ali, Rohan Bhavesh Patel, Kevin D’Souza, Aravinda De Silva, Kiran Dasan, Boiko Ivanov, Hristo Ivanov (wk), Ivaylo Katzarski, Nikolay Nankov, Dimo Nikolov, Asad-Ali Rehemtulla, Bakhtiar Tahiri, Delrick Varghese
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