The Spanish men’s cricket team are looking forward to a return to T20I cricket this weekend,with Croatia the visitors for a five-match series in La Manga. Following the 50 over High- Performance camp in La Manga in April and the subsequent ODI series againstan experienced Denmark side in May, a strong Spanish squad is excited about getting together again and going back to familiar T20I territory.

Spain coach, Corey Rutgers, was delighted to be able to name a settled squad, with Chris Munoz Mills again captaining the side and Yasir Ali his deputy, but was alsovery pleased to welcome some fresh faces. Congratulations to Gurvinder Bajwa, who will be making his T20I debut after a mountain of runs in the domestic competition, and also to Adnan Tahir, who gets his first call-up after impressing in the 50 over set up.

Star batter, Daniel Doyle Calle, is back in Spain colours after a superb T20 season in the Netherlands for Hermes CC, while Muhammad Atif will lead the bowling attack and arrives in top form after a very successful summer with Winton CC in Lancashire. Raja Adeel offers pace to the bowling attack, along side all-rounders Hamza Saleem Dar and Muhammad Kamran who also add excellent ball striking capability in the middle order. The wicket keeping duties will be shared over the weekend between hard-hitting opener Muhammad Ihsan and Alec Davidson Soler, who has provided an excellent middle-order option, building partnerships, contributing useful runs and scoring in unusual areas.

There is good balance in the side with off-spinner, Yasir Ali, and leggie, Lorne Burns, offering further all-round options. An interesting a side is that both spinners sit on 45 wickets, so the race is on for the first to 50 T20I scalps. Left-arm orthodox bowlers, Sebastian Hughes-Piñan and Charlie Rumisterwicz, complete the spin-bowling attack, though Charlie has also scored valuable runs in both 50 over and 20 over games recently, adding further depth to the batting. Finally, Cris Gwilliam Lopez has been deservedly added to the squad as a development player to continue his learning after performing consistently well in recent games.

The first of the five-match series begins at 2pm on Friday 5^th December, with the double-headers on Saturday and Sunday starting at 10am and 2.30pm.

Spain Squad for T20Is v Croatia: Chris Munoz Mills (Captain), Yasir Ali (Vice-Captain), Muhammad Ihsan, Daniel Doyle Calle, Hamza Saleem Dar, Alec Davidson Soler, Muhammad Kamran, Lorne Burns, Sebastian Hughes-Piñán, Muhammad Atif, Charlie Rumisterwicz, Raja Adeel, Gurvinder Bajwa, Adnan Tahir (Development player - Cris Gwilliam Lopez).