Finland to host 10th ICC European Indoor Championship

ICC Europe is pleased to announce that Finland will host the 10th ICC European Indoor Championship to be held in Kuortane in February 2008.

This is the first time that the Scandinavians will host the European Indoor Championship, which made its debut in Versailles, France back in 1998. That year it was won by Portugal who went on to win the competition a total of 3 times and hosted the tournament in Lisbon in 2001.

Like Portugal, Denmark have also been crowned European Indoor Champions 3 times (2003, 2004, 2006), and the only other teams to win the competition are Greece (2005, 2002) and the Netherlands (2000).

17 ICC European member countries have competed in the competition since its inception and the 2008 Championship will include 8 teams including Belgium, Denmark, Finland France, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain.

This year's host, Finland, has only competed in the competition once before at the previous tournament in 2006 held at Lord's Cricket Ground in London, where Denmark was crowned Champion and Finland's final position was a very creditable sixth out of the eight competitors. Perhaps more importantly for the competition newcomer was that the team was awarded the ICC Spirit of Cricket Award for great sportsmanship.

Commenting on the decision to award the 2008 Indoor Championship to Finland, ICC European Development Manager Richard Holdsworth said, "This is a great time for cricket in Finland which is growing extremely fast. Their development programmes have reached out to many girls and boys over the last few years, and awarding them their first ICC event will help this expand even more".

The ICC European Championship will be played at Kuortane from 8th to 10th February 2008.

2006 (London, England) Winners: Denmark
2005 (Herning, Denmark) Winners: Greece
2004 (Schiedam, Netherlands) Winners: Denmark
2003 (Herning, Denmark) Winners: Denmark
2002 (Mechelen, Belgium) Winners: Greece
2001 (Lisbon, Portugal) Winners: Portugal
2000 (Javea, Spain) Winners: Netherlands
1999 (Mechelen, Belgium) Winners: Portugal
1998 (Versailles, France) Winners: Portugal

Indoors: 8-10 Feb - Finland
Senior Division 1 WCLQ: Dublin, Ireland
Senior Division 2 WCLQ: Guernsey
'A' Team Div 1: Netherlands
U/19 Division 1: Scotland
U/17 Division 1: Belfast, Ireland
U/17 Division 2: Germany
U/15 Division 1: Jersey