The ICC European Development Programme has announced its 2010 tournament schedule which will see a number of European countries participate in an exciting and challenging programme of tournaments during July and August next year.

Continue reading "European programme for 2010 announced"

ICC Europe has announced the tournament fixture schedule for the upcoming ICC European Under-19 Division 2 Championship to be held in Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium.

This will be the third time that a Division 2 tournament has been staged at this age group and will see the Under-19 national squads from Belgium, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Israel, Italy and Isle of Man contest the Championship title over a series of 50-over and Twenty20 matches.

“The competition is of particular importance to national development programmes and player pathways as it gives young cricketers a taste of international cricket before they play
for their country's senior side,” said, ICC Europe regional development manager
Richard Holdsworth. "With seven teams participating, this event is one of the larger tournaments in Europe this summer. There is nothing greater than representing your country in any sport and to be able to do so prior to senior level will hopefully inspire continued growth and development of cricketers in our junior age groups."

Hemantha Jayasena, Italy

Four games have now been completed in the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League and all our hard work now rests on the outcome of our final match.

After beating Tanzania we know that if we win on Friday we will get promoted to Division 3 and we are all desperate to play in Argentina next January – we will do everything that we can to qualify for that tournament.

We played Afghanistan in a warm-up game before this tournament which it won by three runs, but that match was our first in Tanzania and we were still getting used to the conditions, so we are not worried about that. It should be a fantastic game.

Continue reading "Win or bust"

Cricket has a rather odd place in Italian sporting history, and that it used to be played widely by British expats indirectly led to football becoming the major sport in the country.

Several of the top football sides owe their existence to cricket, perhaps most famously AC Milan which was formed as a cricket club in 1899 by two British expats from Nottingham. But now Asian expats are reintroducing cricket to the country, and earlier this year the IPL was broadcast on an Italian satellite channel.

"There are loads of people playing cricket in the streets," the Italian board president Simone Gambino told Reuters. His organisation’s challenge is to foster the enthusiasm of the Asian community and spread it among the local population. There is also a problem with finding enough pitches to play on.

Gambino said he was confident that the Italian side was good enough to beat much better opposition. “If Zimbabwe played Italy in a series of five matches, we would certainly win one game yet they are Full Members."

As an Associate member of the ICC, Italy will benefit from increased funding which kicks in next year, However, it also faces problems from on high. Dependent on expats, cricket could well be affected by Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s well-publicied clampdown on immigration.

By Tony Munro

Joe Scuderi, the former Lancashire allrounder, will captain Italy in the ICC World Cricket League Division Four tournament in Tanzania early next month. Vincenzo Pennazza, who represented South Africa at the 2004 Under-19 World Cup is also in the 14-man squad.

Squad: Joe Scuderi (capt), Din Alaud, Andrea Corbellari, Gayashan Munasinghe, Hemantha Jayasena, Samantha Ketipe, Thushara Kurukulasuriya, Andrew Northcote, Nicholas Northcote, Vincenzo Pennazza, Kelum Pereram Peter Petricola, Luca Poli, Nicola Puccio.

Cricket is gaining popularity in Italy, a football-mad nation, thanks to thousands of subcontinental immigrants flooding into the country.

With a few hundred thousand people from the Indian subcontinent now in Italy, there are real quality players moving up from the parks into the league and national side, said Simone Gambino, an Italian who caught the cricket bug while visiting England in the 1970s and who now heads the Italian Cricket Federation.

Local councils have begun to provide space for games, said Gambino. "There are around 100,000 people from the subcontinent in the province of Brescia, and they want to play cricket, so the council had to provide pitches to stop people being struck by cricket balls."

Tom Kington has the full story in The Guardian.

Ireland made slightly hard work of beating Italy at Malahide, but Paul Stirling's unbeaten 54 off 79 balls ensured a four-wicket victory with more than 13 overs to spare. Ireland's bowlers kept a tight leash on the Italians as they struggled to score at more than three-an-over. Ireland stumbled to 75 for 4 after 15 overs, but Stirling ensured they didn't go the same away as Netherlands, who were beaten by Italy on the opening day of the tournament.

Unlike the opening day of matches, there were no surprises when Scotland beat Italy by six wickets at The Vineyard. Italy, who completed a shock eight-run win over Netherlands yesterday, slumped to 125 all out . They were in danger of being dismissed for under 100 when they were 87 for 9 until a last-wicket stand of 38 (the highest for the innings) between Vince Pennazza and Din Alaud gave them some respectability. Pennazza bagged Ryan Watson early in Scotland's chase but from then on the innings was a formality, with Scotland completing the job in 29 overs.

Italy registered a notable scalp on the opening day of the European Championships Division 1 as they beat Netherlands by eight runs at North County in Dublin. Joe Scuderi, the former Lancashire allrounder, hit an unbeaten 84 to steer Italy to 181, which proved too much for their higher-ranked opponents. Tim de Groot hit 51, but he lacked support and the lower order couldn't quite see the chase home as Netherlands were bowled out with more than six overs remaining.

Next week's ICC annual get-together promises to have more than its fair share of politicking, posturing and controversy. But, unless there is a major about-turn, it should also be a watershed for the Associates and Affiliates.

In 2009, income from the ICC's six-year media deal with ESPN-Star, worth over US$1 billion, kicks in, and while the game's big boys will still keep the lion's share, the rest will see substantial increases in their incomes.

Continue reading "Future bright beyond the Test world"

ICC Europe has announced the schedule and venues for the ICC European Division 1 Championship to be held in Ireland from the July 25 to 31, 2008.

The 50-over round-robin tournament will see Europe's top six Associate and Affiliate countries - Denmark, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Scotland - fight it out for Europe's top spot. Six cricket grounds will be used to host a total of 15 matches that will see each country come face to face over five days.

Click here for the full story

The number of people actively participating in cricket outside the Test-playing countries increased 17% in 2007, according to the ICC.

The research, carried out by the ICC's development program, was collated from 33 Associate and 58 Affiliate members. It showed that there were 338,051 male and female players in those countries in 2007, an increase of 49,158 on the previous year. Since 2002, when there were 144,047 participants, there has been a 135% rise.

Click here for the full story.

The ICC Europe Cricket Committee (ECC) have confirmed Ireland as the host for next year's European Division One Championship.

They lasted hosted the tournament in 2002 when 12 teams participated. In the past five years, however, six more countries have joined including Europe's four High Performance Program countries: Denmark, Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands. Norway - who won Division Two in 2006 - also join Italy.

The previous championship, hosted by Scotland in 2006, crowned Ireland as the European Champions and 2008's event will also feature three official one-dayers.

Meanwhile it was also confirmed that Guernsey will host the Division Two Championship in August, a six-team tournament which includes France, Germany, Gibraltar and Jersey. The sixth place will be decided later this year when Croatia meet Israel on November 18.

Supporters of Genoa, Italy's oldest professional football club, have long been proud of their Anglo roots. Founded, like AC Milan, by a group of Brits in 1893 as Genoa Cricket and Athletic Club (Sir James Spensley started the football in 1896), it's still officially known as Genoa Cricket and Football Club.

Things have been going well on the footballing front of late, with i grifoni (the Griffins) finally winning promotion back into Italy's Serie A after a series of false starts. Now, a group of supporters keen to know more about their distant cricketing past approached the club and are giving cricket a new lease of life.

Click here for more.

Argentina and Papua New Guinea (PNG) complete the semi-final line-up of the World Cricket League Division 3 after recording impressive victories on the last day of the group matches in Darwin. Argentina take on Cayman Islands in the semi-finals tomorrow, while PNG meet Uganda.

Group A

PNG beat Italy by eight wickets, but it was their superior net run-rate which edged them into the semi-finals, after both teams were tied following two wins each. PNG, who suffered a shock five-wicket defeat against Argentina on Tuesday, had to beat the Italians by a convincing margin to earn a berth in the last four. They did just that, dismissing Italy for 134 before cruising to their target in the 34th over. Arua Uda top-scored with 58 from 92 balls.

Group B

Tanzania tasted its first win of the tournament, overpowering Hong Kong by five wickets. Hong Kong made 161, with Rahul Sharma notching 43 while Bhavesh Govind took 3 for 31. Tanzania cruised home with Abhik Patwa and Rishen Patel putting on 77 for the opening stand, edging over the line in the 47th over.

The European Cricket Council has announced a deal with ICC Europe, ECB and Premium TV to make ECBtv available on subscription throughout Europe.

In many areas of Europe there is no access to TV highlights of matches, and this move looks to make coverage accessible to everyone.

"ECB is pleased and excited to be able to offer Europe’s cricket fans access to ECBtv and it is hoped that it will take the game to previously uncharted areas, inspiring people to get involved in this great sport,” Richard Holdsworth, the ICC’s regional development manager, said. "Delivering live video coverage via broadband to European territories has brought people closer to the game than ever before.”

ECBtv shows Test and one-day international matches live to certain territories, as well as match highlights, exclusive interviews, press conferences, coaching master classes and many other features to a global audience. Live streams start at £2.99. Click here for full details.

Eight of cricket’s emerging nations will be hoping to take one step towards qualification for the 2011 World Cup when the World Cricket League Division 3 gets underway this Sunday (May 27) in Darwin.

The top two teams from this event will join UAE, Namibia, Denmark and Oman
in Windhoek, Namibia at the ICC World Cricket League Division 2 November. The top four teams from the event in Namibia will automatically qualify for the ICC World Cup Qualifier in the UAE in 2009, while the two remaining teams will have a second chance to qualify for the UAE tournament at the World Cricket League Division 3 in early 2009.

Click here for the full team-by-team preview.

It won't get many column inches in the mainstream cricket press, but the World Cricket League, which started in Nairobi yesterday and continues into next week, features the best of the rest, the six sides just under the ten Test-playing countries. For the two finalists, the rewards are bountiful - a place among the big boys in the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa this September, along with $250,000. For countries used to surviving on annual handouts from the ICC of less than $200,000, that's big money.

Continue reading "A long way from home"

The Italian Cricket Federation are planning to hold their first cricket academy in April 2007. 16 players from the first division of the Italian Cricket League, aged between 15 and 19, will be selected. The aim of the venture is to bridge the gap between schools cricket and senior club cricket.

As encouraging as this sounds, cricket in Italy is still very much a minority sport. The Academy director, James Cheyne who grew up in Britain, says the lack of tradition and history of the sport in Italy is a major obstacle to it prospering in the future.

“Youngsters do not grow up with cricket and miss out on the opportunity to pick up the tricks of the game and do not encompass its unique spirit.”

“The Italian Cricket federation held a 3 day U13 championship in which around 120 boys and girls participated.

“Five years on, only a few of those boys continued to play the game. This level of dropout is not good and we must do something to sustain the development of cricket amongst the youth”

The ECB have more

Italy isn't yet a hotbed of cricketing talent, but that hasn't stopped the annual Italian Cricket Federation finals taking place, as reported by the ECC:

Pianoro CC set the stage for the annual Italian Cricket Federation (FCrI) age group finals over the weekend of the 7th and 8th October 2006. Five 8-a-side teams from the U13 age group, together with numerous FCrI club officials gathered at the cricket club, situated just outside of Bologna.

The U13 competition was won by Bologna CC who, having established a core of talent from the local Bangladesh community, were the strongest team on show, forcing Capannelle CC into second place on this occasion. The tournament was held in tandem with an FCrI teachers and club players introductory course.

According to CricketEurope, the ICC will expand the World Cricket League to five divisions:

The leading five European nations have already won places in the first three divisions: World Cup qualifiers Ireland, The Netherlands and Scotland in Division 1 (which will take place in Kenya in January-February next year), Denmark in Division 2 (planned for Namibia in November 2007), and Italy in Division 3 (planned to take place in the USA in summer 2007).

But with an eight-team Division 5 tournament now planned for the first half of 2008, five places in which are assigned to the next ranked country in each region, Norway are guaranteed a slot, along with Afghanistan, Argentina, Botswana and the Cook Islands.

The three remaining places will be allocated by the ICC Development Committee when it meets in December, and those allocations will be based on the rankings of the next group of countries. This means that Jersey, runners-up to Norway in this year’s European Second Division tournament, and possibly even Germany, who finished third, will be competing with The Bahamas, Panama, Nepal, Singapore, Mozambique, Zambia and Japan for those last three positions.

Read the full story at cricketeurope.net

The European Cricket Council's European Cricket Championships, which are being held in Scotland, are the first to be organised under the auspices of the International Cricket Council’s World Cricket League.

The tournament will feature 13 countries in two divisions playing 30 matches in seven days at 12 west of Scotland grounds, starting on Thursday (August 3).

The Division 1 sides - Scotland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Italy - will play a round-robin tournament, from which there is no relegation. The three matches involving the first three named teams are deemed by the International Cricket Council as official One-Day Internationals, and will be played at Ayr Cricket Club, where ground facilities have been upgraded with support from South Ayrshire Council.

Scotland’s other two matches will be played at New Anniesland (against Denmark) and Hamilton Crescent (against Italy).

Division 2 consists of eight teams - France, Germany, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Hellas (Greece), Israel, Jersey and Norway - who will play in two initial pools of four, followed by crossover semi-finals and four ranking finals - and one team will be promoted to the first division in two years’ time. The facilities at all grounds have been equipped with additional weather protection and other enhancements, thanks to a range of local authority grants and commercial support.

A huge bonus is available for the Division 2 teams, with the winners not only promoted to the European Division 1 in 2008, but also a place in the new ICC World Cricket League Division 5 in 2007-08. This team will receive $20,000 towards preparation of that event, the venue of which is still to be decided.