Edinburgh, July 18 (FN Representative) The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Europe Qualifier gets underway here in Scotland from July 20 to 28.Seven teams – Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Jersey and Scotland – go head-to-head in 21 matches over eight days, in the race for two spots to what will be the biggest ICC Men’s T20 World Cup ever, in the West Indies and the United States of America (USA) in June 2024.Scotland, who just narrowly missed out on qualifying for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023, will look to put aside their disappointment from the recently concluded ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe and focus on their next mission, which is to qualify for the Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, according to ICC media release.Fans can enjoy the Europe Qualifier by watching it live on FanCode in India and ICC.tv in the UK and the rest of the world. Additionally, all six of Scotland’s fixtures will also be available for broadcast on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app in the UK.Scotland captain, Richie Berrington said, “We are looking forward to what is another great opportunity to qualify for a World Cup, and it’s exciting for everyone in Scottish cricket to be hosting the Europe Qualifier. It will be great to play in front of home crowds again.”Austria captain, Razmal Shigiwal said, “It is an honour for Austria to play in this event against the best teams in Europe. We rarely get such an opportunity to test ourselves against such strong opposition. All of our players have trained hard, and we are looking forward to the opportunity to showcase the potential of this Austrian team.”
Denmark captain, Hamid Shah said, “We are very excited and looking forward to the challenges in the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup Europe Qualifier tournament. Since winning the Sub-Regional Qualifier C last year, we have prepared specifically for this tournament to level-up our skills to compete against the top teams. I am confident that we will surprise some teams.” Germany captain, Venkatraman Ganesan said, “We are extremely excited to be a part of this tournament, and the opportunity to qualify for the 2024 T20 World Cup is a huge motivation for the whole squad. We hope to leverage our experience from playing at the last Global Qualifiers in Oman and rise to the occasion this time to produce better results. I would like to wish good luck to all other participating teams, and I cannot wait for the action to start!”Ireland captain, Paul Stirling said, “After the performances put in by our lads at the T20 World Cup in Australia last year, we are keen to ensure we get back on the world stage again to showcase the talent that Irish cricket has within its ranks.” “T20 can be a very unpredictable format at times, so we’ll need to be at our best to succeed over the next 10 days in Scotland. Every squad at this Qualifier is here with the same objective – to qualify for the main event in the West Indies and USA next year, so we expect tough, competitive cricket and won’t be taking any opponent lightly,” he said.Italy captain, Gareth Berg said, “We’ve been working hard with our high-performance players overthe past eight months preparing for Edinburgh – a tournament that will no doubt be exciting for any supporter of the game.
Each match in this Qualifier will be like playing a World Cup final, but our players and coaching staff have worked hard in our preparations, and we are looking forward to stepping over those boundary ropes and putting in some strong performances.”Jersey captain, Charles ‘Chuggy’ Perchard said, “We are excited to be competing in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Europe Qualifier in Scotland. The players are focused on the opportunity to qualify for the 2024 T20 World Cup.”Andy Wright, ICC Regional Development Manager – Europe said, “The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Europe Qualifier is set to be the biggest and highest profile event the Europe region has seen, with direct qualification to the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup a reality for two of the seven participating teams. The stage is set, and we are looking forward to welcoming the sides in Edinburgh for 21highly competitive matches played in front of passionate fans from across the region.“I would like to wish all seven teams the best of luck for the tournament, and pay tribute to the staff, venues and volunteers of Cricket Scotland who have worked tirelessly to put on what I am sure will be an outstanding event,” he added.