Credit: LCF
The Luxembourg Cricket Federation (LCF) has announced that Heritage CC represented Luxembourg in the European Cricket League (ECL 2024) from 26 February to 22 March 2024.
The ECL 2024 was a T10 cricket competition organised by the European Cricket Network (ECN). Held at the Cartama Oval in Málaga, Spain, it marked the fourth edition of the European Cricket League, with 35 participating champion clubs from Europe.
Heritage CC, led by captain Vikram Vijh, qualified to represent Luxembourg by winning the Pete Mitchell (PM) cup held in July-August 2023. Pooled in Group A of ECL along with Denmark, Italy, Hungary and Croatia, the team won three out of four league games, finishing level on points with Denmark and Italy, with only Net Run Rate (difference of average runs scored vs conceded by a team) separating them.
Heritage's only loss in the league stage was to the eventual champions, Italy, by a narrow margin of two runs. Notably, they defeated the group favourites, Denmark, by a comfortable margin. Subsequently, Heritage CC won against Hungary’s Cobra CC in the eliminator, setting up a virtual semi-final against Italy’s club JIB, which they eventually lost, “albeit not without a strong fight”, according to LCF.
LCF highlighted notable performances at the tournament, including Vikram Vijh and Girish Venkateswaran winning three ‘Player of the Match’ awards between them. Top batters for Heritage CC included Timothy Barker, with 194 runs at a Strike Rate (SR) of 248, Vikram Vijh with 189 runs at SR of 245, and Amit Halbhavi with 103 runs at SR of 210. Other memorable moments included Anoop Orsu changing the momentum of a game with five sixes in a single over. In terms of the team’s bowling, top bowlers were Hari Chockalingam with seven wickets at an economy of 9.83, Amit Dhingra with five wickets at an economy of 12.16, and Gaurav Singh with five wickets at an economy of 12.50.
