The inaugural season of the Euro T20 Slam has been cancelled for now, and postponed until 2020. The confirmation came on Wednesday, August 14.
The mega event, billed as the first multinational T20 franchise tournament, was slated to begin in the Netherlands on August 30 and end on September 22. It would then move to Scotland and Ireland. Local talent from all the three countries would get a golden opportunity to play alongside some of the best T20 players in the world.
Prashant Mishra, ET20S Board Member and Managing Partner at Woods Entertainment, said – “The Board of the Euro T20 Slam, funding partners and franchise owners of this exciting new T20 tournament have reluctantly come to the decision that staging of the event will not be possible in 2019.”
“We want to ensure that the inaugural staging of the Euro T20 Slam provides the best springboard to making this a truly flagship event on the global cricket calendar. As such, we believe the right course of action is to postpone the Slam to a further date. This will give us the necessary breathing space to ensure we are ready to go.”
“We will work with the three cricket boards, our principal investors, the franchise owners, players and other stakeholders within the game to ensure we fulfil any commitments we have made to the extent possible. We want to ensure the goodwill and integrity that we have built up rolls on into 2020,” he added.
The six teams that were all set to play in the tournament are – Dublin Chiefs (Ireland), Belfast Titans (Ireland), Amsterdam Knights (the Netherlands), Rotterdam Rhinos (the Netherlands), Edinburgh Rocks (Scotland) and Glasgow Giants (Scotland).
Eoin Morgan, Rashid Khan, Shane Watson, Brendon McCullum, Shahid Afridi, and Martin Guptill were the ‘icon players’ for the Euro T20 Slam 2019.
Babar Azam, Chris Lynn, JP Duminy, Luke Ronchi, Imran Tahir, and Dale Steyn belonged to the ‘marquee players’ category of the tournament.
