European Championships - Seniors - Day 1

The preliminaries and formalities are over. The NPCs have been briefed on the rules about mobile phones (off and visible if in the playing area), electronic cigarettes (no), the new appeals process (there isn't one), and so on. The speeches at the Opening Ceremony were acceptably short - and Croatian President Ivo Josipović was indeed there.

Now the serious stuff begins. The Seniors are playing for seven days, three matches a day with no light days or days off. The 26 teams play a 12-round Swiss for four days and then the top ten teams play a complete Round Robin for the last three days. It is not an ideal format but the organisers didn't anticipate a record-breaking Senior entry.

The Seniors set the ball rolling, if I may mix my sporting metaphors, at 10:30 local time. The Open and Women's teams get a lie in and join us for their first match (and our second) at 14:30.

Because it is a Swiss we only know our first round opponents, Serbia, and we don't know much about them because this is their first time in a major championship.

England cricketers have a number on their shirts that indicates how many people have represented England at cricket before them. Thus the current captain Alastair Cook wears 630. I have produced a similar list for the England Senior players in European and World events (which didn't start until 2000). Paul Hackett is number 11, Colin Simpson is 21, David Price is 22, Gunnar Hallberg is 25, John Holland is 26, and David Mossop is 27. (The full list, and those for the Open and Women’s team can be found on the EBU website under Internationals – History.)