European Cricket Network (ECN) unveiled the group draw for the upcoming European Cricket League (ECL21) 2021, which will be held from May 31st – June 25th, 2021, which will see 16 clubs from 15 European countries compete for the top prize. V.O.C Rotterdam of Netherlands, who are the Champions from the inaugural edition held at La Manga club in Spain from 2019, will await the winners from the three groups comprising of five team’s each and the top runner-up among the three groups.
The clubs participating in the ECL21 are the domestic T20 tournament winners of the respective countries in 2019 (2020 edition was not conducted due to COVID-19 pandemic in England, Romania, Scotland, Belgium and Russia) and 2020. With V.O.C Rotterdam already in the tournament based on their title win in 2019, Netherlands will have two entries in the event (2020 domestic club T20 tournament winners HBS Craeyenhout). The 2020 edition of the competition was cancelled and postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic.
The tournament will be played in the T10 format, and will provide the top clubs from 15 European countries to play against each other, that is primarily aimed at the improvement of club cricket and to promote European club cricket to a global audience with live streaming and broadcast networks.
All matches will be streamed on Fancode, the streaming aggregator network belonging to Dream11 for Indian audiences and Sports Flick for global viewers, while live scoring for the games will be available on ECN website.
Group A of the tournament will take place from May 31st – June 04th, and will feature the clubs from England (Swardeston), Italy (Brescia), Germany (FCA04 Darmstadt), France (Dreux) and the winners of Spain’s domestic T20 competition (Minhaj or La Manga).
Group B of the tournament will take place from June 07th – 11th, and will feature the clubs from Scotland (Forfarshire), Norway (Bjorvika), Netherlands (HBS Craeyenhout), Belgium (Ostend Exiles) and Sweden (Lund).
Group C of the tournament will take place from June 14th -18th, and will feature the clubs from Ireland (C.I.Y.M.S), Romania (Cluj), Denmark (Svanholm), Finland (Helsinki Gymkhana) and Russia (Moscow Foxes).
The group stages will see each club play against their other group opponents in a double round-robin league format, before the winner of the group advances to the Finals week and joins V.O.C Rotterdam.
