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27 of Europe’s most promising young cricketers will participate in the tenth annual ICC European Centre of Excellence at the La Manga Club, Spain from the 7th – 12th April.

This is the third consecutive year that the five-day camp will be held at the world-class leisure resort La Manga Club located in Murcia, South-Eastern Spain on the Costa Calida. The Resort’s cricket facilities includes two pitches with artificial wickets and a four-bay artificial net facility.

The group of participants, all aged between 13 and 17, come from 14 European countries, including Europe’s top three Associate members, Ireland, the Netherlands and Scotland and less developed Affiliate member countries, such as Cyprus, Spain and Switzerland.

The Centre of Excellence has been organised by ICC European Development Officer Richard Bedbrook who states the idea behind it is “to identify and select a crop of the most talented young cricketers in Europe within these age groups and provide them with an opportunity to develop their talents through excellent coaching and support services in order for them to achieve their potential”.

He added “With 27 cricketers and 14 leaders participating in this year’s event, this will be one of the largest camps yet, and we hope that all involved will benefit from the coaching and support on offer from the ICC Europe coaching team”.

The 14 leaders are coaches or development officers with one coming from each of the participating country boards. These coaches will accompany the players on the camp offering further support, whilst at the same time they will take part in a separate coach education programme tailored to their needs as coaches within their own countries. The sessions for these participants include a series of seminars and presentations and the opportunity to work alongside and learn from the ICC Europe coaching team.

The ICC Europe coaching team consists of five coaches who will lead sessions on batting, bowling, fielding and wicket keeping, with focus also being placed on physical conditioning, tactics and leadership. In addition to Bedbrook, the coaches include Centre of Excellence Director Richard O’Sullivan, who has been involved with the initiative since it began in 1999 and Philip Hudson ICC European Development Officer - Performance who organised the camp for the previous four years. Both have extensive coaching experience at club, county and national level.

Working alongside Bedbrook, Hudson and O’Sullivan are two Europe-based coaches - Roland Lefebvre, who is national youth coach for the Netherlands Cricket Board (KNCB) and who’s extensive cricket career saw him play first class county cricket in the UK and Australia and compete for the Netherlands in two World Cups; he is also currently involved in the ECB Level 4 programme. The second is Mickey Lund, Denmark’s Cricket Development Officer and a current member of the Danish national side which competed last year in the ICC World Cricket League Division 2 in Namibia.

The ICC European Centre of Excellence has for the past ten years been an integral part of the ICC European Development Program and the results are starting to show with several of the graduates now playing for their national sides, including Daan van Bunge and Alexei Kervezee of the Netherlands, young players who have both broken through to the senior team. The Centre of Excellence has developed year on year with the standards of players rising considerably. The programme has changed accordingly and now looks to mirror, where possible, the European Academy environment.

Participants:

William Carr Cyprus

George Papaonisiforou Cyprus

Saad Hasnaat Ahmad Denmark

Christian Peck-Thorsted Denmark

Ritvik Marwaha Germany

Mansor Mubarik Germany

Karan Sadhwani Gibraltar

Rahul Daswani Gibraltar

Ben McVey Guernsey

Andrew Hutchinson Guernsey

Ben Wylie Ireland

Graham McCarter Ireland

Alasdair Slack Isle of Man

Bradley Marshall Isle of Man

Levi Diveker Israel

Shlomi Korman Israel

Bhuiyan Abdur Rahman Italy

Scalco Giorgio Italy

Joseph Mayes Jersey

Aidan McGuire Jersey

Joost Kroesen Netherlands

Paul van Meekeren Netherlands

Jake Sunderland Spain

Michael Garside Spain

Nick Farrar Scotland

Lukas Kuster Switzerland

Cedric Cohen Switzerland



Leaders:

Mike Kyriacou Cyprus

Martin Jensen Denmark

Alex Boreham Germany

Richard Askew Gibraltar

Lewis Heald Guernsey

Robert O’Connor Ireland

Stuart Marshall Isle of Man

Yonatan Sidelsky Israel

Alphonsus Jayarajah Italy

Chris Minty Jersey

Steven van Dijk Netherlands

Phil Beal Spain

Kari Anderson Scotland

Patrick Henderson Switzerland