A new 10-over series beginning this week is hoping to inspire a ‘huge untapped cricket-loving market in mainland Europe’
Monday’s launch of This is Europe, the Guardian’s series focusing on, well, Europe, handily coincided with the launch of a new competition that organisers hope will transform the way cricket is perceived on the continent. The new era for the game dawned in the unlikely location of Alicante on Spain’s Costa Blanca, where in balmy temperatures but howling gales the Dream11 European Cricket Series got under way in front of a small crowd of local enthusiasts and a potential global audience of millions.
None of the players involved – this week’s teams are Sporting Alfas (the hosts), Alicante Intellectuals, La Manga, Levante, Madrid United and the Pinatar Pirates – are household names quite yet, but there’s time for that. With every minute broadcast live on FanCode, where the competition sits only slightly uneasily alongside the NBA and NFL – for which the site holds Indian streaming rights – as well as I-League football and ACC Twenty20, there will certainly be plenty of exposure. The title sponsor, Dream11, is an Indian fantasy sports platform that already works with La Liga, the NBA and the IPL, and it comes from the same fevered imagination as the European Cricket League, which held a small-scale but successful debut event last year.
Written by Simon Burnton
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2020/mar/03/european-cricket-series-the-spin under the title “The Spin | European Cricket Series hoping to tap potential from Alicante to Prague”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
