Football-obsessed Germany embraces cricket

The mention of Germany stirs up thoughts of excellent beer, hi-tech automobiles and, of course, football.

While football reigns supreme, a strong sporting culture exists in the country and various other sports are played with much success. Currently in possession of the FIFA World Cup, Germany also finished with an impressive 17 gold medals at the recent Rio Olympics.

Yet, cricket has mostly been a distant mystery.

But the charms of the game of leather and willow are slowly taking hold of the country, courtesy a combination of cricket-crazy refugees arriving from Afghanistan and Pakistan along with an enthusiastic governing cricket body — Deutscher Cricket Bund — headed by Brian Mantle.

Recently, the national team, under the captaincy of Indian-raised Rishi Pillai, won the International Cricket Council Europe Championship Division 2 in Sweden. The success is reflective of the hard yards put in by the players and the diligence of DCB.

The sacrifices made by a German cricketer are plenty. While top cricketers from full member countries become instant hits with the public and rake in the riches, a cricketer from an affiliate country like Germany barely enjoys fame and has to rely on full-time jobs for sustenance.

"It's the saddest part and also the heartening part about our cricket," Pillai tells Wisden India. "The sad bit is that the players have no financial motivation to train and play on a weekly basis. But that players still devote themselves to the game only goes to show that the driving force is sheer love for the game.

"There's an investment of time and money on the players end," Mantle, the DCB manager tells us. "We try to pay for everything, but we just don't have adequate funding at the moment. Hopefully that will change in the future."The game in Germany has acquired greater significance than being just about winning tournaments. For scores of refugees seeking ways of societal bonding in an alien land, cricket has become a tool of integration.

"Most of the asylum seekers have little to do, they have little money, and going out to play cricket once or twice a week brings them joy. They can vent out some of their frustrations, meet friends and have some fun, and that's a big part of integration," says Mantle.

Mantle took over as DCB head in 2012. At that time, there were just 1,500 players and 70 clubs to oversee. The number has bumped up to more than 5,000 cricketers and 220 clubs in 2016.

However, the surge in participation numbers has been so sudden that the DCB is struggling to keep up. The DCB is granted just €200,000 by the ICC on an annual basis to have the game up and running at all levels, and with the increase in demand for the game, that amount is grossly inadequate.

As the game isn't an Olympics sport, it doesn't receive any funding from the government either. According to Mantle, the DCB will be in line to receive five times as much funding from the German government than they're currently getting from the ICC if the game features in the Olympics.

"There isn't and there will never be a shortage of talent in Germany. If we get the internal structures right in the next two to three years as the DCB is striving to do, in the next five years I envisage us playing at least in the third or fourth division of the World Cricket League."

"Two years ago we had about a hundred teams playing each other in a loose system," explains Mantle. "We had no definite structure to pit the best players against the best players. So we developed the DCB Super Series, a tournament featuring six of the best teams, made out of players qualified to play for Germany. They're now playing serious cricket rather than just hobby cricket.

"We then hired a coach in Steven Knox, a former Scotland international, who sparked a revolution with the team. He's very professional and committed to the task. Our team was made a little younger and more dynamic as well."

To escalate the game to the next level, DCB has realised the need to make cricket self-sufficient. In a country where the sport has only recently shown glimpses of potential to make it mainstream, it remains tough to attract sponsors, but the game's appeal is on the rise, and marketers are slowly taking note. A deal with Money Gram, a major multi-national finance company, was signed only recently and could be viewed as a sign of cricket's growing profile.

The increased visibility is largely on due to asylum seekers and expats from cricketing nations, but on a lesser scale the revolution is starting to trickle through to small segments of the ethnic German populace.

"(Local Germans are taking up the sport) mainly at the youth level, but it takes time for that to come through," says Mantle. The Pakistani and Indian origin kids who play cricket occasionally get their German friends along, but it's a slow process and it will take some time to show at the senior level.

"It's not easy going," Pillai chips in. "People are trying to attract young Germans to the game by having the game introduced at schools and imbibing a cricket culture, but lack of adequate infrastructure tends to discourage kids from playing."

Yet even with all the challenges that face German cricket today, there's more reason to celebrate than not. Participation numbers are growing, sponsors are coming in and the administrators and players are pushing forward with unwavering passion. The country has set itself lofty but attainable goals for the future.Alongside France, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and Austria, Germany will feature in the ICC Europe Championship Division One in 2016. Finishing in the top two will earn them a berth in the ICC World Cricket League's lowest division and from there, they will look to scale the ranks and eventually acquire One-Day International and Twenty20 International status. These are faraway possibilities at the moment, but Germany seems on the right path to get there.

"We already have a big advantage (heading into the ICC Europe Division One Championship)," gushes Mantle. "The tournament will be in the 50-over format, and while we play 50-over cricket domestically, some of the others don't."

"There isn't and there will never be a shortage of talent in Germany," Pillai states confidently. "If we get the internal structures right in the next two to three years as the DCB is striving to do, in the next five years I envisage us playing at least in the third or fourth division of the World Cricket League."

There are several major challenges for Germany to contend with, not least the lack of resources. However, the DCB has done the best it can despite limitations, and as Pillai puts it, "if all falls in order like we are working towards, there's light at the end of the tunnel."