In The International Spotlight...Germany Cricket
Germany is a world reknowned sporting country and has national teams in the top echelon of sports such as soccer, bobsledding, basketball, individual sportspersons such as Boris Becker, Michael Ballack, Michael and Ralf Schumacher...and the list goes on. However as Germany lies so close to the U.K they also play Cricket, which is a minority sport in that country but none-the-less do play the brilliant game.
Cricket in Germany has a history going back to 1850, when a group of people from England and the United States founded the first German cricket club in Berlin. Several more teams were later founded in Berlin and the rest of Germany, as well as a national federation. Cricket lingered on over the following century, with occasional visits of German players to England and British and other foreign teams touring in Germany, but only when it got a foothold in the German universities in the 1980s did the number of German cricket clubs and players start to grow again.
The national organisation for the game is currently the German Cricket Federation (Deutscher Cricket Bund, DCB), founded in 1988. As a whole there are about 50 cricket clubs in the country.
Germany became an affiliate member of the ICC in 1991, but did not play their first international until 1995, when they took part in the European Nations Cup in Oxford, England, playing against Austria, Sweden, Greece and France. They hosted the tournament in 1996, playing against France, Portugal, Sweden and France, and finished as runners up in the 1997 tournament after losing to France by one run in the final, the winning run being scored by David Bordes whilst he had a skull fracture. The Wisden Cricketers' Almanack later listed the final as one of the 100 best matches of the 20th century.
In 1998, Germany competed in the European Championship for the first time and finished seventh. They became an associate member of the ICC the following year and played in Division Two of the European Championship in 2000, finishing as runners-up to Gibraltar.
They played at the 2001 ICC Trophy in Canada, their first and, to date, only appearance in the ICC Trophy. They failed to progress beyond the first round and again finished as runners up to Gibraltar in Division Two of the European Championship the following year. They also played in Division Two in 2004, finishing third, and in 2006, again finishing third.
Tournament History -->
ICC Trophy:
1979 to 1990 inclusive: Not eligible - not an ICC member
1994: Not eligible - ICC affiliate member
1997: Not eligible - ICC affiliate member
2001: First round
2005: Did not qualify
European Championship
1996: Did not participate
1998: 7th place
2000: Division Two runners up
2002: Division Two runners up
2004: 3rd place (Division Two)
2006: 3rd place (Division Two)
In May 2008, Germany will travel to Jersey to play in Division Five of the World Cricket League. A top two finish in this tournament will qualify them for Division Four later in the year. In August, they will travel to Guernsey to play in Division Two of the European Championship against the hosts as well as France, Gibraltar, Jersey and the winner of a play-off between Croatia and Israel.
Regional associations
Regional associations include the Norddeutscher Cricket Verband, (North German Cricket Federation). Clubs playing there include:
• Oldenburg
• Lübeck
• HICC
• Alster
• Kiel
• Pak Alemi
• Buxtehude
Clubs include the Cricket Team of the University of Göttingen (German: Cricket Team der Uni Göttingen) which started with the help of the British Tourist Board in Frankfurt, the British Army and the 1st Royal Tank Regiment Hildesheim who supplied the team with enough equipment to furnish the club and offered a date for a game on their base. The first team comprised a mixture of people who had played cricket before and some who hadn't. All came from the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, most from the Department of Neurobiology.
A major milestone in Göttingen cricket was gaining permission from the University of Göttingen to make a pitch at the University Sports Ground. The Cricket Team of the University of Göttingen is a founder-member of the DCB. Cooperation with the University of Göttingen has expanded, so that the club hosted several national indoor championships, with greatly increasing numbers of teams. Moreover, nets were erected for practice. A priority in the coming years will be to introduce more students to the game.
Here are some good links to find out more on German Cricket:
*Acknowledgements to Wikipedia.com, Cricinfo.com
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