New European cricket league given go-ahead

GUERNSEY'S top cricketers will have an additional international challenge in 2014.

A meeting held at the ICC European Cricket Conference in Bologna, Italy, has rubber-stamped a new round-robin league competition, to be held in Sussex next summer.

Mark Latter, the Guernsey Cricket Board chief executive, was in Bologna with director of cricket Nic Pothas and is 'highly delighted' with the development which will give the national side even more testing cricket.

'To prepare ourselves for future ICC World Cricket League competition we wanted to explore a new 50 overs "European League" involving the ICC Europe fourth-to-seventh-ranked nations being ourselves along with Italy, Denmark and Jersey,' said Latter on his return.

'It has now been given the green light. Everyone was highly receptive to it and we are looking at staging it in July in the UK, simply because the costs of travelling to the Channel Islands, which could have staged it, are simply too much,' he added.

'Exactly where and when depends on the ECB fixture list. When that is published we can see which grounds are free.'

More in today's Guernsey Press.