Griffins buzzing for Spanish mission

After two purely domestically-based seasons due to Covid, the next time Guernsey’s Evening League champions take to a cricket field competitively will be in Spain when they become the island’s first representatives in the European Cricket League.

And having faced familiar faces on the local scene for so long, come February they will be up against opponents from Ireland, Norway, Hungary, Bulgaria and Croatia in their group of the T10 competition.

‘It’s still extremely surreal, albeit receiving the details of the draw today makes it feel a little more like it’s actually happening,’ said Griffins manager Rob Thomson on Monday evening.

‘It’s incredibly exciting to be part of this, especially representing Guernsey for the first time.

‘There has been such a buzz among the lads since the night we won EL1 and this has built and built as information has been gradually released by the European Cricket League.

‘Canaccord have been really quick to support us with this and have funded new kit for the tournament and we’re keen to repay their faith with a good showing.’

The draw placed Griffins in Group B along with Irish outfit Brigade, Norwegian team Bjorvika, Royal Tigers of Hungary, Indo Bulgarian and Zagreb Sokol from Croatia.

Their round-robin group stage will take place from 14-18 February.

In total there are 30 clubs taking part, split into five groups with the top team in each progressing to finals week from 14-18 March. Jersey champions Farmers are in Group E.

The competition is taking place at the Cartama Cricket Oval in Malaga.

‘We have done a little bit of homework so far, but purely in terms of looking at who we’d rather avoid, so on balance we have to be happy with the draw given how it’s worked out,’ Thomson said.

‘The two Dutch sides look incredibly strong – one of them are the reigning ECL champions who made 222/0 in the final last time it was played, and the other are their current domestic champions. A lot of their players are full internationals.

‘Alisdair Evans, who is playing in the World Cup at the moment for Scotland, plays for the Carlton so when we saw he bowls 85mph-plus we were keen to avoid them also. Equally we wanted to avoid Farmers, of course purely because we’ve played them before.

‘All that said, it’s a T10 format and as we know from experience, one man having a good day can win a game for his team.’

Thomson reported that he expected Griffins to field a strong 15-man squad, although it has yet to be finalised while they work on logistics of travel.

All players are likely to see a fair amount of action in a format the Griffins manager described as ‘quite intense’.

‘We’ll play everyone in a full round-robin Monday to Wednesday, then split into two groups of three to play qualifiers on “Super Thursday” before Finals Day on the Friday.

‘Ultimately, the higher you finish after the Thursday the easier it is to get to the final on the Friday.

‘The winner of the group will end up playing nine or maybe 10 games.

‘My view is this probably suits us as I’d like to think we’ll be competitive over a number of games.’

All ECL22 matches will be live streamed.