The National teams from Norway, Finland, Croatia, and Slovenia will be joining hosts Austria in a round-robin cricket festival to be played at Austria's premier cricket facility at Seebarn near Vienna from 20th to 25th August.

The idea of the Representative Festival was promoted by the ECC to provide competitive cricket for fledgling European cricket countries who were not eligible to participate in the ECC mainstream competitions, the ECC Trophy and European Championships. Austria, as an experienced ICC Affiliate and veteran of all ECC Trophy competitions so far, was chosen to host this inaugural Festival.

The 40-overs per side round-robin competition will enable cricketers from all participating countries to enjoy the thrill and drama of an intensive week's international cricket in the hope that it will encourage particularly Slovenia, Croatia, Norway, and Finland to continue their pioneering efforts at bringing cricket to a wider audience within their countries.

Hosts Austria will comply strictly with the ECC Trophy regulations on player qualification in preparation for next year's important qualifying tournament, also to be held in Austria, for the next European Championships in 2002. Austria's squad includes several native Austrians who learned the game within Austria. Erwin Grasinger (20), an attacking left-handed middle-order batsman, will look to the tournament to provide him with his maiden 50 for Austria; wicketkeeper Lukas Haider (20) featured prominently at the ECC Trophy in Switzerland in 1998, as did seasoned campaigners Michael Nedoma and Martin Roy (Corfu 1999).

Exciting prospects are the second-generation Asian brothers, Farakh and Salman Malik, both Austrian citizens, Farakh (18) an opening bowler and Salman (16) an explosive lower-order batsman.

The experienced Austrian side, although favourites to win the Festival, may find the going tough against the primarily expat sides representing Finland and Norway. Austria will no doubt gain useful practice before the serious business of attempting to book a place in the European Championships begins at next year's Trophy to be held on the very same ground at Seebarn.

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