The Norwegian cricket team is the national cricket team of Norway. Although the team is by name Norwegian, the players all currently descend from the countries of the Indian subcontinent, i.e. Pakistan, India or Sri Lanka. 90% of players domestically are of Asian descent, although most are Norwegian citizens and nationals.
History:
Cricket was first organised in the 1960s by a few Asian immigrants and has grown to the current state of 24 clubs playing in three divisions.
Norway became a member of the International Cricket Council in 2000, and played their first international tournament that year, the European Representative Championships in Austria. They won the tournament without losing a game, but did not play again until 2003 when they took part in the ECC Trophy for the first time. They won this tournament too, again without losing a game. This qualified them for Division Two of the European Championship in 2004. They finished fourth in the six team tournament, gaining wins against Gibraltar and Israel.
In 2005 they won the European Affiliates Championship, the equivalent of the ECC Trophy. They once again won the tournament without losing a game, and again qualified for Division Two of the European Championship in 2006. They won the tournament, beating debutants Jersey in the final after losing to them in the group stage. This gave Norway a place in Division One for the first time in 2008 and earned them a place in Division Five of the World Cricket League.
In May 2008, Norway travelled to Jersey to take part in the Division Five tournament. Although Norway beat Vanuatu in Group A, it was their only group stage win and with four loses they failed to make the semi-finals. Norway finished ninth overall after defeating the Bahamas and then Japan in positional playoff matches. With only the top two from this tournament qualifying for Division Four in Tanzania later in the year, Norway missed out on the chance to take their 2011 World Cup dream any further.
In July 2008, Norway met the top nations of European cricket when they participated in the Division One of the European Championship. The Norwegians finish sixth overall in the six team tournament, losing four of their matches convincingly to; Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and Scotland whilst their match against Italy was abandoned due to rain.
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*Acknowledgements to Wikipedia.org and owners of pictures and videos used.
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