"I never thought I'd ever play cricket for Dublin. It's brilliant. I think there is a market for [this competition]."
Saturday 20 July 2019 10:56, UK
England's World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan has been named as the Dublin Chiefs' 'icon' player at the draft for the inaugural Euro T20 Slam.
The new tournament, which will be staged between August 30 and September 22, will see six teams from Ireland, Holland, and Scotland compete over 33 games.
Morgan's Chiefs, along with the Belfast Titans, will play their home games at Malahaide - and the 32-year-old is relishing representing his birth city.
"I never thought I'd ever play cricket for Dublin. It's brilliant," said Morgan, who played 23 ODIs for Ireland before switching allegiances to England in 2009.
On the Euro T20 Slam, which also features the Dutch-based Amsterdam Knights and Rotterdam Rhinos, plus Scottish teams Edinburgh Rocks and Glasgow Giants, Morgan added: "We are laying a platform where people get opportunities to play cricket on a consistent basis against the best players in the world.
"When you think about everything that is going on with Irish and Scottish cricket - Scotland turned [England] over last year, which was great for the game - I think there is a market for it."
The six teams, backed by Indian investors, were allocated one 'icon' player and one 'marquee' player at a cost of around €120,000 and €100,000 respectively, with Pakistan batsman Babar Azam, the top-ranked T20 batsman in the world, joining Morgan at Chiefs as a 'marquee' acquisition.
The sides were then given a chance to draft five more international players as well as nine locals to complete their squads, with Harry Gurney (Dublin), Ravi Bopara (Glasgow), Luke Wright (Belfast) and Tymal Mills (Edinburgh) among the English players picked.
Martin Guptill (Edinburgh), Brendon McCullum (Glasgow), Rashid Khan (Rotterdam), Shahid Afridi (Belfast) and Imran Tahir (Amsterdam) were some of the world stars drafted.
