June 28, 2026. The Indian cricket team were fresh off securing back-to-back T20 World Cup titles, in the midst of a generational run in the shorter format, going unbeaten for 16 consecutive series and competitions, for a total 1040 days. But on that fateful Sunday, that streak came to an end. Not at the hands of another cricketing juggernaut but by Ireland, who not only beat them once, but twice to secure the two-match T20I series.

Massive moment for European Cricket

It wasn’t as if India had even sent a half-baked team as they did in previous Irish tours, but featured eight players from the squad that triumphed in the T20 World Cup just three months prior. The series was seen as just a warm-up ahead of a five-match T20I series against a more formidable English side. The first defeat could have been seen as a pure upset alone, unprecedented but possible in the erratic T20 format. But two signalled something greater.

The timing of this historic victory could not have come at a better moment for not just Ireland, but European cricket as a whole. The brand new European T20 Premier League kicks off on August 26 in Voorburg, Netherlands. The competition features six franchises from the three cricket strongholds in the European continent- Ireland, Scotland, and the Netherlands.

“Obviously, as an Indian fan, I was crestfallen,” said league co-founder and Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan about Ireland’s win over India, speaking exclusively to The Crichub.

‘Ireland beating India encouraging for Europe’

“But very encouraging for Europe. To show the kind of talent that there is in Europe and the possibilities. It’s always a wonderful story, right? When David and Goliath meet and David triumphs.”

“I think it was wonderful to put a spotlight on European cricket and the European talent that’s available and I hope that the ETPL can build from there.”

Each nation has two franchises representing them at the ETPL. Dublin Guardians, one of Ireland’s two franchises, is owned by former Indian head coach and icon Rahul Dravid, who sees real potential for cricket to grow in Ireland’s localized sporting community, where emphasis is usually given to heritage sports such as Gaelic Football and Hurling.

“There’s a lot of history and tradition around Irish cricket,” said Dravid, speaking exclusively to The Crichub.

“There’s a lot of very passionate people who have contributed to the growth of cricket in Ireland and continue to support and play the game in Ireland and I think really our opportunity is to kind of grow that base a little bit. We might need to be a little bit patient and grow.”

“It’s not about competing with some of these other more established sports,” he added.

“But it’s [cricket] in your sort of market, in a new market, kind of growing the sport and giving these passionate fans the opportunity to see something different, to be able to grow the game in that sort of small market and hopefully in time, in the long term vision of everyone, it becomes one of the more sort of mainstream sports in Ireland.”

Can ETPL make a difference?

For years, cricket has often gotten lost in the crowd of endless sports in Europe. Outside England, no other country has cricket as part of their PE curriculum in schools, including the three nations in the ETPL. Thus knowledge of the sport is scarce amongst the general public in the continent, but given the rich passion for sports in the continent, teaching cricket may not be as hard as it seems.

“I grew up playing tennis, football, hockey, and cricket and there’s so many similarities between those sports,” said Jonty Rhodes, former South African cricketer and co-owner of the Rotterdam Dockers franchise, speaking exclusively to The Crichub.

Rhodes briefly coached cricket in Sweden and provided his intriguing insight on how he turned locals onto the sport.

“What we did in Sweden, we were attracting [locals], especially on the women’s cricket [front], where it wasn’t just the diaspora. We were now looking at local Swedish women. We had ice hockey players, tennis players, and [we were] just introducing, you know, the common aspects, because there is a lot of commonality, especially around the movement, the hand-eye coordination between all the sports that they already play in Europe.”

“It’s just about getting them [playing] and not trying to over-explain the game, over-complicating the game,” added Rhodes.

“Just come in and hit [the ball] like you would tennis or hockey, or move like you would in the football field, because those were the attributes that made me the kind of cricket player that I was.”

World’s best players set to take part in ETPL

The franchises feature a wide array of marquee players who have starred on the global cricketing stage. This includes the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin for Dublin, Heinrich Klaasen for Rotterdam, Steve Smith for Amsterdam, Glenn Maxwell for Belfast, Mitchell Santner for Edinburgh, Liam Livingstone for Glasgow and so many more to name. But the focus of the ETPL is and always will be on the European talents in the squads.

“All of them. That’s one of the perks of being part of the league, right?” said Bachchan when asked about which European player he is looking forward to seeing in the inaugural ETPL.

“I want all of them to do well and I’d be very excited to have new heroes come out from the local markets as opposed to all the other giants of cricket that we already have playing for us.”

ICC’s WC revamp blow for European nations?

With the ICC revamping its tournament formats for the Cricket World Cup, which have limited opportunities for associate nations to qualify for the World Cup, the nations and players involved have expressed their dissatisfaction. It is particularly harrowing for European nations, who are all associate members, apart from Ireland. The decision has come at a time when Europe finally began to show that cricket truly has a global presence.

Apart from Ireland’s triumph over India, we have seen some extraordinary feats being made by European nations in cricket this year. Italy made their T20 World Cup debut, walking away with a win in their maiden appearance and coming inches away from beating England. More under the radar, the Spanish national side went on a 24-match winning streak, surpassing Ricky Ponting’s record with Australia for the longest winning streak in international cricket.

The quality of cricket may not be on the same wavelength as when Ponting broke the record, but it is undeniable that there is real passion for cricket in Europe, and the ETPL is the perfect platform for that passion and talent to shine. This is Europe’s opportunity to show that they are not to be neglected, and that the milestones made this year are just the seeds of what can be a truly terrifying presence in the world of cricket.

The 2026 ETPL runs from August 26 to September 20 in Voorburg, Netherlands, and Malahide, Ireland.

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