Spain finished their warm up games against Leeds Metropolitan University with four wins out of four last weekend and then hours later submitted their squad for the ICC Europe Division Three tournament that will be held in La Manga later this month.
As well as the players Spain will also have Level Four coach Bobby Denning and Performance analyst Peter Williams on hand for the full event.
Current national team manager Mark Spencer is returning to the UK due to a promotion at work so Cricket Espana’s director of cricket Neil Brook will take over for the duration of the tournament. CE would like to thank Mark for being so instrumental in creating such an harmonious feeling around the squad and we wish him well in his new position.
The team start with games against Greece and Finland, follow up with a match with Isreal and then play their final game in the round robin format against Belgium. The winners will go forward to play in the ICC Division 2 tournament in Essex later on in the year.
The squad chosen to play in the ICC Division Three event consists of two Spanish born players Christian Munoz-Mills and Pedro Venus Valiente. Alcorcon CC provide they prolific batsman Tariq Ali and the current Spanish champions Sporting Alfas have Gary Crompton as well as Christian Munoz in the squad.
La Manga contribute the Almeria based players Sajid Ali, Talat Ali, Atif Ali, Munib Ranja and Farhat Mahmood whilst Cataluyna are supplying four players, wicket keeper Mohammad Yasin, Nisar Ahmed, Armaghan Khan and the skipper Tanveer Iqbal. The final member of the squad is a product of the Spanish youth system Ravi Panchal, who is also a La Manga based player.
The event starts on the 30th April and admission to all matches is free. For further information on the tournament please visit the ICC Europe website at http://www.icc-europe.org/tournaments/eur_tour.php