The International Cricket Council (ICC) has often been criticized to not making cricket a global sport, but now they are expanding it to Germany and USA. Campbell Jamieson, General Manager, Commercial at the ICC, said the game is growing rapidly in Germany, which is home to a sizable South Asian population. The ICC has 104 members in its fold but only 12 out of them play Test cricket.
Describing the same, Jamieson said, “Cricket is expanding. A really good example of that is Germany where in the last five years we have gone from 50 cricket teams to 500 teams and we are struggling to keep up with the infrastructure and the governance of the sport in that country. We need to ensure that cricketers in that country always get to play the sport they love.”
Initially, economic migration from cricket-crazy India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka initiated the expansion of cricket in Germany but of late the rising number of Afghan refugees are taking the game beyond the big cities. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees statistics up to 2016, Germany had at least 46,292 registered Afghan refugees in the country.
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Cricket has also witnessed a rapid rise in the USA, something that was recently acknowledged by former West Indies batsman Ricardo Powell, who is now a selector with the USA national team. Powell said, “If you look at the current national team, 70 per cent of the team members is of Indian descent. There is a huge Indian population in the US and we have 250 clubs playing the game. That says a lot about cricket in the US.”
Speaking on ICC’s bid for women’s cricket’s inclusion in the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Jamieson elaborated, “Hopefully, the bid is successful and that will take the women’s game further forward. From a cricket and Commonwealth Games’ perspective, both compliment each other really well. CWG can utilise the power, strength and support that cricket has throughout the world. There is a rich cricketing history in the UK, great facilities and infrastructure but as I said, it is just an application along with a number of sports.”
On the ever-increasing threat of corruption in cricket with the advent of T20 leagues around the world, Jamieson said it is imperative that the sport is governed properly.
