Norway National Cricket Team - History

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.

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. 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. 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.