Twickenham skipper Carlos Nunes will be missing the club's MCCL games in Weeks 15 and 16. But, for a very good reason. He's away playing for a Portugal team that's hoping to be part of the next T20 World Cup finals....

Portugal bring in star quality
Portugal have been very much on an upward curve of late, but rocket fuel has recently been added in the form of Australian Test player, Moises Henriques (see here for the BBC's take on this one).

Henriques played four Tests and 16 ODIs for Australia, but now he's eligible for his country of birth, Portugal. That means Ts' skipper Carlos Nunes will be lining up alongside him when the Portuguese take their next steps in the direction of qualifying for the 2028 World Cup (taking place in Australia and New Zealand).

Nunes has also been in decent form of late for his country, too. He scored 67 and 46 in successive days against Sweden in Portugal's last round of matches in July, and he'll be hoping to build on that in the five games this coming week. Portugal look like they might mean business.

Planning ahead
That having been said, the path to World Cup qualification is more complicated than trying to put a man on the moon. Let's just say that whichever sides make it will have won a lot of games to get there.

Portugal are in a group of five teams (alongside Israel, Germany, Greece and Czechia). If they win that then they play (on Friday 21 August) the winners of another group of five - whoever comes out on top goes through to the wonderfully named 'Global Qualifer'. We'll deal with what happens there if Portugal get through.

Portugal's first game is Friday 14 August against Isreal. It's a 9am kick off UK time (see here for all the details of the tournament schedule). All of the games are being streamed live on the ICC website (go here for that).

Portugal's full agenda is as follows.
- Friday 14 August - Portugal v Israel, 9am UK time
- Saturday 15 August - Portugal v Germany, 2pm UK time
- Monday 17 August - Portugal v Greece, 2pm UK time
- Thursday 20 August - Portugal v Czechia, 9am UK time
- Friday 21 August - Finals day

Go well, Carlos (and indeed Moises!)!