Norway national cricket team
| Association | Norwegian Cricket Board |
|---|---|
| International Cricket Council | |
| ICC status | Affiliate (2000) |
| ICC region | ICC Europe |
| WCL | 2015 Division Six |
| International cricket | |
| First international |  Norway v. Austria  (Seebarn, Austria; 22 August 2000) |
| As of 7 October 2015 | |
The Norway national cricket team is the team that represents the Kingdom of Norway in international cricket matches. The Norwegian Cricket Board became a member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 2000, and the national side played its first international match later that year. Most of the sides matches have come against members of the European Cricket Council (ECC), although in more recent years Norway has fielded sides in the lower divisions of the World Cricket League (WCL) The team's current head coach is Muhammad Haroon, a former first-class player in Pakistan, who was appointed in early 2014.[1]
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 [1], 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.[2]
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.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5]
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 21 June, they lost this t20 match by 4 runs.
Tournament history
European Championship
- 1996 to 2002: Did not participate
- 2004: Division Two 4th place
- 2006: Division Two Winners
- 2008: Division One 6th place
- 2010: Division Two 5th place
World Cricket League
- 2008: Division Five 9th place[6]
- 2009: Division Six 6th place[7]
- 2011: Division Seven 5th place[8]
- 2012: Division Eight 5th place
European Championship T20
- 2013: Division One 8th place
- 2014: Division Two 1st place
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
- Zaheer Ashiq (Captain)
- Ehtsham-ul-Haq (Vice Captain)
- Sheraz Khalid
- Ansar Iqbal
- Shahbaz Butt
- Sufyan Ali
- Safir Hayat
- Fazil Mir
- Babar Shahzad
- Suhail Iftikhar
- Damon Crawford
- Wasim Tahir
- Umran Shahzad
- Prithvi Bhart
- Santosh Kumar (Reserved)
- Ali Tafseer (Reserved)
- Faisal Shehzad (Reserved)
- Iftikhar Hussain (Reserved)
References
- ^ "Norway under-19 cricket team enjoy tour of Lincolnshire" – Lincolnshire Echo. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
- ^ http://www.icc-europe.org/EURODIV1/results.shtml, official website ICC-Europe, retrieved 7 August 2008
- ^ Cricinfo, Accessed 20 September 2009
- ^ Cricinfo, Accessed 14 May 2011
- ^ Cricinfo.
- ^ Cricinfo, Accessed 20 September 2009
- ^ Cricinfo, Accessed 20 September 2009
- ^ Cricinfo, Accessed 14 May 2011
External links
Template:2008 ICC World Cricket League Division Five
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