Edinburgh and Glasgow fly flag in new Euro T20 Slam as big names sign on
Household cricketing names including Shane Watson of Australia and New Zealand’s Brendon Mccullum are set to light up the inaugural Euro T20 Slam later this year with the Edinburgh Rocks and the Glasgow Giants the teams representing Scotland.
The new tournament was sanctioned by Cricket Scotland, Cricket Ireland and Cricket Netherlands officials inmarch,butsomemoremeat was put on the bones yesterday at the official launch in Dublin.
Similar in style to other wellknown T20 leagues around the world, the Slam will feature six city-based franchise teams and will run from 30 August to 22 September.
The Edinburgh Rocks and the Glasgow Giants will be up against the Amsterdam Kings, Rotterdam Rhinos, Dublin Chiefs and Belfast Titans. The competition will predominantly feature players from Scotland, Ireland and the Netherlands, but each squad of 16 can include up to seven overseas players.
And although they have not been allocated to “clubs” yet, it has been confirmed that Watson and Mccullum will be joined by Luke Ronchi (New Zealand), Babar Azam (Pakistan), Rashid Khan (Afghanistan) and Chris Lynn (Australia) as the “marquee” signings for the event. The player draft will take place on 30 June .
The tournament will be played in four blocks, with all six teams playing at the VRA in Amsterdam between 30 August and 5 September, at The Grange in Edinburgh between 6-12 September, and at Malahide in Dublin between 13-19 September, prior to a knockout phase at an as yet undesignated location.
A total of 33 games will make up the event.
Pakistan
great Wasim Akram – who took 421 wickets at Test level – is a member of the Euro T20 advisory committee and hopes the Slam will be important in the development of Scottish cricket.
He said: “It’s going to be huge for Cricket Scotland, for Ireland and of course the Netherlands as well. In terms of developing cricket nations, Afghanistan and Ireland have moved up the ladder in recent years, but I think, after the Euro T20 Slam, Scottish cricket will improve a lot.”