Norway national cricket team

Norway
Norway
ICC membership granted 2000
ICC member status Affiliate member
ICC development region Europe
World Cricket League division n/a
Captain Damien Shortis
Coach Mohammad Haroon
First recorded match 22 August 2000 v Austria at Seebarn Cricket Centre, Austria
As of 8 September 2009

The Norwegian cricket team is the national cricket team of Norway. In a country of 5.0 million, Norwegian Cricket has about 5000 members.

History

Cricket was first organised in the 1960s by a few Asian immigrants and has grown to the current state of 55 clubs playing in five 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.[1]

In August 2009, Norway travelled to Singapore to compete in Division Six of the World Cricket League. Norway only won only one of five group matches and finished sixth overall after losing a positional playoff to Botswana.[2] As a result, Norway were relegated to Division Seven.

In May 2011, Norway travelled to Botswana for Division Seven of the World Cricket League and their relatively poor performances at ICC events continued as they finished fifth overall. Although they did beat Japan in a group match and then a positional playoff.[3] Fifth place saw Norway relegated to Division Eight of the World Cricket League.

However, by the end of year 2011 a drastic change in team performance was observed World Cricket League. Mainly due to inclusion of some new & younger people as previous team players were considerably aged and non-sporting shape. Under the captaincy of Zeeshan the team went on to win several qualifying rounds and titles with larger ranked teams of same capacity Japan. June 2012 in World Cricket League team gained the top spot in the shortest format of the game with amazing reformations in the field. This success got the team a spot in another ICC qualifier event that could also secure them a place in T20 Worldcup 2013 next year where 15 Top world teams participate.[4]

In 2013 they competed in the 2013 ICC European T20 Championship Division One in England where they finished in 8th place, securing wins over Sweden and Gibraltar.

In 2014, Norway started their tour with their first game being against Old Southendian and Southchurch cricket club on the 21st June, they lost this t20 match by 4 runs.

Tournament history

European Championship

World Cricket League

European Championship T20

The future

Norway were relegated from the World Cricket League following their fifth placed finish at 2012 ICC World Cricket League Division Eight, meaning they will now play in regional European leagues.

Current squad

The following list contains the 14 players plus 4 reserved in Norways's squad for the 2014 ICC Division 2 T/20 Championship in Essex 2014

References

  1. ↑ http://www.icc-europe.org/EURODIV1/results.shtml, official website ICC-Europe, retrieved 7 August 2008
  2. ↑ Cricinfo, Accessed 20 September 2009
  3. ↑ Cricinfo, Accessed 14 May 2011
  4. ↑ Cricinfo.
  5. ↑ Cricinfo, Accessed 20 September 2009
  6. ↑ Cricinfo, Accessed 20 September 2009
  7. ↑ Cricinfo, Accessed 14 May 2011

External links