It’s not often that you hear the word ‘Cricket’ being associated with Turkey, however, that might be about to change as the country’s National Squad has begun training for the 2022-2023 T20 World Cup Europe Qualifiers.
The group stages has placed Turkey with the likes of Cyprus, Isle of Man, Romania and Serbia, and the games will be held in Finland between July 12 and July 31st. Winners of group stages will then progress to a regional finals of which two teams will move forward and qualify for the full World Cup Tournament in 2024.
There has been a lot of ‘grass roots’ investment in secondary sports over the past few years, and interest in Cricket has been growing rapidly, though it’s probably some way off before you get a Turkey-England test match, or see Turkey lifting the T20 World Cup!
Ertu?rul Çetin (Pursaklar Mayor) and The Justice and Development Party district head Servet Türkay?k visited the team’s training camp recently in the Pursaklar district of Ankara, to oversee practise, meet the players and wish them well for the forthcoming games.
Turkey’s first ever Cricket match was actually played back in 2009 against Estonia, and on that occasion they happened to beat Bulgaria during the ICC European Championship Division. Then in 2011, when they participated again, they won two out of five matches, repeating the win against Bulgaria, and also claiming victory over the Czech Republic.
All in all, there’s around 1000 players in Turkey, supported by 58 umpires and around 65 coaches.
Image courtesy of (Türkiye Kriket on Instagram)
