Expanded EL Premier given green light
SEVEN teams will contest the Evening League Premier title in 2020.
Clubs gave the Guernsey Cricket Board’s proposal for a revamp of the competition the green light at the annual meeting on Monday.
It means that Cobo, Griffins and Rovers will be joined by four promoted teams – Independents, Irregulars, Optimists and Wanderers – in the top flight next season.
‘While the changes have been forced upon us by the decision by Barbarians not to enter a team in EL1 in 2020, the actual outcome as agreed by all tonight shows the evening game to be in rude health,’ said GCB chief executive Mark Latter after the meeting.
‘The addition of a second Independents team is very welcome and we hope we can add to this in the coming years.
‘This growth will come from the junior section that grows apace and the fact that we are discussing tonight how more clubs get involved at this level can only be good for the future.
‘In terms of Barbarians I would also like to thank on record Gordon [Irish] and all involved there for stepping into the breach when EL1 needed them.’
At the request of the seven top-flight clubs, the GCB have been asked to investigate the feasibility of playing some EL1 matches on grass pitches at the KGV.
The original proposal was for all the games to revert to artificial pitches in 2020 with part of the reasoning being that Guernsey will be playing on such wickets in their next ICC T20 regional event, but the consensus of the meeting was that the EL1 clubs would like to play each other once on matting and once on grass, so Latter will attempt to accommodate that in the fixtures.
On a representative level, Latter informed the meeting that due to a number of factors, the main one being Jersey’s participation in a Cricket World Cup Challenge League tournament in Uganda next summer, the 2020 Inter-Insular is set to be brought forward, probably to early July.
