Durham Academy spinner Sebastian Hughes-Piñán has been named in a 16-player squad for Spain’s five-match T20 series against Croatia in August.
The Spanish men’s national cricket team will play a five match series against their Croatian counterparts in early August as part of their preparation for the 2024-2025 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Europe Qualifier Group C, that will take place in Guernsey later in the summer.
The event, classified as the Mediterranean Cup, will be live streamed by the European Cricket Network, and will come under the auspices of T20 international ranking matches.
Spain draft four debutants into their sixteen man playing squad, although all the newcomers come with international experience, having played before for their country in T10 tournaments.
Alec Davidson-Soler, Dani Long-Martinez and Sebastian Hughes-Pinan will travel from England and meet up with the squad in Zagreb.
Hughes-Pinan was unavailable for the recent series in Italy because of a niggling injury, but he has now recovered, and is performing well for the Durham Academy side. He recently played for his county against Lancashire and took the wicket of Rocky Flintoff, the son of the former England international Andrew.
Long-Martinez and Davidson-Soler did travel with the team for the recent tour of Italy but have never been involved in ICC accredited tournaments before.
The fourth debutant to get a call up is Sheraz Iqbal. He was also in Brescia after getting called up courtesy of some impressive performances for his club side and he did sufficiently well in Italy to retain is place in the squad for the Croatia series.
Captain as usual will by Christian Munoz-Mills who has been a revelation since returning from a long standing injury, and he will be ably supported by Yasir Ali, who continues as vice-captain.
In the batting department Spain will rely heavily on Daniel Doyle-Calle, Hamza Saleem-Dar and Mohammad Ihsan. DDC is currently one of the top scorers in the Eree divisie in Holland, and Hamza and Ihsan have been racking up the runs for their respective clubs in Cataluyna.
The versatile Awais Ahmed, who had the honour of captaining his country for the first time in Italy recently, can play a variety of batting positions, and the all-rounder Lornee Burns is capable of making runs, to add to the wickets his lethal leg spin is likely to yield.
Charlie Rumisterwicz gives another attractive slow bowling option, whilst Atif Mehmood, Mohammad Atif and Adeel Raja will spearhead the pace attack.
Coach Rutgers will also have his strength and conditioning coach Alastair Priddle available in Croatia. On confirmation of the Mediterranean Cup coach Rutgers said: ““Firstly, a big thank you to Croatia Cricket and to the European Cricket Network for the invitation to attend the first ever edition of the Mediterranean Cup, hosted inZagreb.
“It is an exciting opportunity to come and enjoy a series in beautifulCroatia. Also, it will be great to test out some new faces against some older ones in a multi format T10 and T20I series.
“Croatia will be the 14th National side we have come across in the T20I format since its inception. We are very much looking forward to the series and it will hopefully begin a fruitful relationship between the two countries moving forwards in the years to come”
The T20 matches will take place on 2nd, 3rd and 4th of August.