Brigade ready for European Finals

Brigade's Iftikhar Hussain shone with both bat and bowl last month in Spain.

And the Beechgrove side will be hoping that the pilgrimage pays off with a not inconsiderable prize fund on offer as the five group stage winners lock horns over the coming week.

Brigade will be joined on the Costa Del Sol by English side Tunbridge Wells, Pak I Care from Barcelona, Brescia CC from Italy and Swedish club champions Alby Zalmi. The format is slightly different to the group phase with teams playing each other twice before splitting into the overall finals day on Friday.

Once again there are a few early rises for the Waterside outfit with 8am (local time) starts for their games on Monday and Tuesday. Skipper Britton won’t mind if they get a 6am alarm call on Friday as well - that’s when first plays second in the table for a place in the Grand Final.

Speaking ahead of the trip, the Brigade captain said his squad was looking forward to heading back out, but knew full well that this would be a different type of challenge.

“Of course it will be much tougher now when you have the group winners playing off but I also think we learned enough from the first week that we’ll improve again this time.

“I’ve watched quite a few games in the other groups and a lot of people have been very impressed by Tunbridge Wells. I also think the Spanish side are very decent so we’ll have to work hard for anything we get.

“One thing I would say is that while T10 is very attacking cricket, we’ve learned that you don’t need to try to hit every ball over the roof. I thought some of our lads, Ifti (Iftikhar Hussain) and Adam McDaid for example, batted very sensibly, played really good cricket shots and attacked everything loose.

“You have to play the game on its merit and if you’re chasing 170 that forces your game plan, I understand that. I honestly believe that if we play to our ability we’ll not be far away.”

Brigade will take the same squad that travelled first time around but the skipper is still getting physio for tennis elbow while Graeme McCarter is unlikely to bowl much as he too recovers from a recent injury.

All games will be streamed live on European Cricket League’s YouTube channel.

Brigade fixtures next week are as follows: Monday 14th March v Tunbridge Wells (9am); v Pak I Care (1pm); Tuesday 15th v Alby Zalmi (9am); v Pak I Care (3pm); Wednesday 16th v Brescia (11am); v Alby Zalmi (3pm) and Thursday 17th v Brescia (1pm); v Tunbridge Wells (5pm).