Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands to play T20 tri-series

LONDON, Apr 3 (AFP): Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands are to contest an annual tri-series T20 tournament with the first edition to be held in the Netherlands in June, it was announced on Tuesday.

Scotland are the highest ranked of the three countries at present, 11th in the International Cricket Council's rankings. The inaugural edition will be played out from June 12-20, with all three sides facing each other twice in double headers to be held in Rotterdam, Deventer and Amstelveen. "We always have hard-fought games against both Ireland and Netherlands and we are grateful to our Dutch neighbours for hosting this exciting event in this format," said Scotland head coach Grant Bradburn.

His Ireland counterpart Graham Ford said the series would serve his team well for the more testing challenge of hosting India in two T20s on June 27 and June 29.