Cricket in Germany

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.^[1] Nevertheless much of the cricket to date is played by British soldiers stationed in Germany.

The national organisation for the game is currently the German Cricket Federation (Deutscher Cricket Bund, DCB), founded in 1988. In total there are about 50 cricket clubs in the country.

International team

Germany has a national team that takes part in the European Championship and has also taken part in the ICC Trophy.

Regional associations

German Cricket is organized in several regions, which all have their own leagues. The winner of those will play for the national championship.

Those regional associations are:

• Bayrischer Cricket Verband (Bavaria)

• Cricket in and around Munich

Clubs playing in the league are:

• Cricket Club of Bayern
• Lufthansa Services Cricket Club
• Munich Cricket Club
• Munich International Cricket Club
• Pak Orient Cricket Club
• Serendib Sports Club

Other clubs include:

• Cricket Club Passau e.V.
• FSV Erlangen-Bruck e.V., Abteilung Cricket

• Berliner Cricket Verband

• Berliner Cricket Committee

Clubs playing in the league are:

• ACCB
• Berlin Cricket Club*
• Britannia 92*
• Stragglers Cricket Club
• DSSC (Der Sports and Social Club Berlin) (sic)*
• PCCB (Pakistan Cricket Club Berlin)*
• RFCC (Reinickendorfer Füchse)*

This has now been superseded by the Bundesliga Ost, which in 2010 was organised in two divisions, which included the clubs marked * above, with the addition of Dresden and HCCW (Havelländische Cricket Club Werder). Some of these clubs fielded teams in both divisions.

• Hessischer Cricket Verband

• Cosmopolitan Cricket Club Hassloch e.V.
• Darmstadt Cricket Club (TH & FH Darmstadt)
• Frankfurt Cricket Club (FCC) e.V.
• Ruder- und Cricket-Club Hanau e.V
• FSV Hellas 71 e.V., Abteilung Cricket
• Olympia Frankfurt e.V., Abteilung Cricket
• Rodgau Cricket Club e.V
• SKG Walldorf e.V., Abteilung Cricket
• SV Wiesbaden 1899 e.V., Abteilung Cricket

• Norddeutscher Cricket Verband, (North German Cricket Federation).

Clubs playing there include:

• HSV-Cricket
• Oldenburg
• HICC
• THCC Rot-Gelb
• Pak Alemi
• Buxtehude
• Lüneburg Panthers
• Fallingbostel CC
• Jacobs Universität CC Bremen
• Hannover
• CC der Universität Göttingen
• Schwerin

• Nordrhein-Westfalen Cricket Union

• Köln Cricket Club e.V.
• Bonn Cricket Society e.V.
• Bonn Royals Cricket Club
• ASV Köln - CICC
• Cologne Cricket Club
• Bonn Cricket Club e.V.
• Köln Xtremers Cricket Club
• Düsseldorf Blackcaps Cricket Club
• Bochum Cricket Club e.V.
• Rheindahlen Crusaders CC (based in Mönchengladbach)
• Dortmund Cricket Club e.V.
• Mülheim a.d. Ruhr Cricket Club e.V.
• Deutsche Welle CC
• Bonn Veterans CC

• Baden Württemberg Cricket Verband,

Clubs playing in the league are:

• Kaiserslautern University CC
• Cricket Lions Karlsruhe CC
• Karlsruher CC

• TSG-Ketsch
• Stallions-TSG Wiesloch CC
• Pak Freiburg Cricket Club, Freiburg
• Freiburg Nomads CC
• Cosmopolitan Cricket Club Mannheim
• Stuttgart Cricket Eagles e.V

^[2]

Club cricket

A feature of club cricket in Germany is that many clubs experience rapid fluctuation in membership, which is composed largely of expats playing the sport. Clubs which cannot join a league (mostly due to lack of available members) may still take part in independently arranged friendly matches.

The club's wicket can vary from a grass pitch (grown on the natural soil) to coconut fibre wickets on concrete, flicx® pitches, and do-it-yourself constructions. The size of the field also varies, from a good club size (English standard) to double hockey pitches which the club hires, and unusual fields such as that at Göttingen, which is large, but has a bank that rises up to 4 metres above the level of the square. Indoor cricket is played in various tournaments throughout the winter, mostly in German 3 field gyms^{[clarification needed]}, or in indoor tennis halls, in Twenty20 format.

Leagues

The majority of cricket clubs are organised into six regional leagues. Each region hosts one or two leagues of 6 or 7 clubs. Matches are over 50 overs. In two of the leagues the first and second placed teams meet in play-offs, and the winner of the play-off is the regional champion. At the end of the regional season, national play-offs are held: the northern league champions (NDCV (North), NRCU (North Rhine Westphalia), BCV (Berlin)) play against each other, and the southern teams (HCV (Hesse), BWCV (Baden Württemberg), BYCV (Bavaria)) do likewise. The overall northern and southern winners then play off for the German Championship. Independent of the regional leagues are 20/20 tournaments which are mostly invitational tournaments initiated by one team.

Notes

1. ^ History of cricket in Germany, at the German Cricket Federation website
2. ^ http://www.cricket.de

External links

• German Cricket Association
• Official site of the German Cricket Team
• Norddeutscher Cricket Verband
• Northrhine Westphalia Cricket Union
• Baden Württemberg Cricket Verband