Finnish line in sight for patient Guernsey as Elizabeth College are included in top 100 schools
FINLAND or Belgium will be the destination when the Guernsey men’s national squad return to international action next summer.
ICC Europe have confirmed that the the sub-regional qualifiers, which are the first step towards the Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 in the USA and the West Indies, will be held at the venues that were due to host the corresponding events for the Australia 2022 showpiece before the Covid pandemic caused their cancellation.
In 2019 Guernsey were drawn to play in Finland, but there is no guarantee at this stage that they will be heading there in 2022.
‘They have not done the draw, so we do not know which group we will be in and the general seedings have changed a bit because of the games that have been played since – quite a lot of European teams have actually played where they have been able to travel,’ said Guernsey Cricket Board chief executive Mark Latter.
‘We have a two in three chance of it being Finland because they are hosting two qualifiers to Belgium’s one and having been denied the chance to go there twice now [due to the pandemic], it would be good to finally go there.
‘But wherever we go, it is nice to see confirmation of these tournaments for next summer and have every expectation that we will be able to compete.’
Latter also revealed that Guernsey are in talks to take part in a mini warm-up tournament with Germany, Spain and Sweden ahead of the qualifiers.
‘We need to talk to Jersey, too, about the T20 series that we need to catch up on and those conversations will include both the men’s and women’s teams, but we need to understand everyone’s ICC commitments before we can finalise anything. We already know that Jersey will have their global qualifier for the Australia 2022 ICC T20 World Cup in either Oman or Zimbabwe in February or May next year,’ Latter said.
‘We also know that our under-19s will have a qualifier next year for the U19 World Cup 2024. That Division Two qualifier will have at least eight teams.
‘It’s going to be a busy season,’ he added.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth College have been included in The Cricketer Magazine’s Schools Guide 2022, which recognises the top 100 cricketing senior schools nationally. ‘It’s an amazing achievement for the school,’ said Ben Ferbrache, who coaches at EC as part of his Guernsey cricket development manager role.
‘We have got a great programme right the way from bottom to top ... everything is going in the right direction to give the boys the opportunity to succeed.’
