The inaugural edition of the Euro T20 Slam, a new franchise league that was set to get underway this summer, has been postponed till next year.

The tournament was supposed to be held from August 30 to September 22 in Amsterdam and was to feature two teams from each of Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands. A host of international stars like Eoin Morgan, Mohammad Amir, Dale Steyn, Martin Guptill among others had been roped in to show their trade in the first season of the league.

However, the organisers on Wednesday (August 14) said they need the "necessary breathing space" to launch the competition and want to start it in 2020.

"The Board of the Euro T20 Slam, funding partners and franchise owners of this exciting new T20 tournament have reluctantly come to the decision that staging of the event will not be possible in 2019," Prashant Mishra, ET20S Board Member and Managing Partner at Woods Entertainment, said in a statement.

"We want to ensure that the inaugural staging of the Euro T20 Slam provides the best springboard to making this a truly flagship event on the global cricket calendar. As such, we believe the right course of action is to postpone the Slam to a further date. This will give us the necessary breathing space to ensure we are ready to go.

"We will work with the three cricket boards, our principal investors, the franchise owners, players and other stakeholders within the game to ensure we fulfill any commitments we have made to the extent possible. We want to ensure the goodwill and integrity that we have built up rolls on into 2020," he added.

Malcolm Cannon, Chief Executive of Cricket Scotland, said: "While this was a very difficult decision to make at this late stage, we believe that it is the right one and one which leaves us with a great opportunity to launch the Euro T20 Slam next year with its deserved noise level."

(With IANS inputs)