Germany to play World T20 sooner than expected

Germany is well known for being one of the dominant forces in the world of football. They are the current World Cup champions and will be aiming to defend the title when they play the FIFA WC 2018, in Russia. However, a point worth mentioning is that a number of players with dual citizenship have donned the national outfit and has been the reason for German triumphs on a global scale.

According to recent developments, the same is now being applied to cricket in the country and the recent results have been phenomenal. The country is now among the fastest growing in the cricket world and, if we remove the Netherlands from the equation, it now has more regular players than the rest of continental Europe combined.

Earlier, this year, Germany won the European Division One tournament for the first time in its history. And in the last week, the country marked its return to Division Five of the World Cricket League after a nine-year hiatus with a one-wicket victory over Ghana. It has only been possible courtesy the Refugees, who are driving a cricketing renaissance in football-obsessed Germany.

Chief executive of DCB reveals the reason behind the success of German cricket

Brian Mantle, the chief executive of the Deutscher Cricket Bund (DCB), is focusing on creating a pool of talent in the country together with appropriate investments and believes Germany will play in the World T20 sooner than the world would have predicted.

Speaking exclusively to Independent Sport, Mantle said, “Germany is up to about 6000 participants playing hard ball cricket. Then there are thousands and thousands playing softball cricket in parks and self-organized leagues. Though football remains the primary sport for people born in Germany, a huge chunk of the cricket-playing sportspersons in the country are Asian immigrants.”

He further added, “Around 95% of them are Asian immigrants and a lot of them are refugees but we’ve got more cricketers now than anywhere else on the continent – it’s huge. We’ve gone from 60 clubs five years ago to around 370 this year.”