European Cricket League

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 popularize cricket in the European continent.[1] The league was founded in 2018.

European Cricket League
European Cricket League Logo
AdministratorEuropean Cricket Network
Format10 overs
First edition2019
Latest edition2023
Next edition2024
Tournament formatGroup Stage and Knockout
Number of teams31
Current championFrance Dreux Ville Royale
Most successfulNetherlands VOC Rotterdam
Spain Pak I Care Badalona
France Dreux Ville Royale (1 title each)
WebsiteOfficial website

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 two editions of the ECL, the first being in 2019. VOC Rotterdam won the inaugural edition, while Pak I Care Badalona are the most recent champions. The second edition took place in 2022 and involved 30 teams.

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 in Final 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
2020		 Cancelled
Spain
2021
Spain
2022		 Spain Pak I Care Badalona

84/3 (9 Overs)

 England Tunbridge Wells

81/7 (10 Overs)

 7 Wickets (6 balls remaining) England Chris Williams (477) Spain Muhammad Babar (23)
Spain
2023		 France Dreux

131/5 (10 overs)

 England Hornchurch CC

69/8 (10 overs)

 62 Runs Republic of Ireland Jason Van Der Merwe (641) France Tabish Bhatti (27)

References
  1. "European Cricket League – About". ECL. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  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".
  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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