Opinion: Top Non Commonwealth cricket playing countries…
The following are the top non commonwealth countries in the world where cricket is not played predominantly by recent immigrants i.e. the number of locals playing the game is more than 20%
Indonesia (12161)
Italy (566 
Thailand (5656)
Netherlands (5380)
Japan (4182)
Argentina (3925)
Denmark (3784)
Chile (2045)
Indonesia values are a little skewed due to the fact that they have more than 11000 kids in junior involvement activities.
To me…. at least those that have a decent senior outfit i.e. Denmark, Netherlands, Italy, Argentina and Japan etc. are pretty important countries, because they take the game outside of the commonwealth club. ICC should perhaps invest a little bit more in these countries to help them raise their standard if they are willing. Also Argentina gives gives cricket a good presence in South America.
For the purpose of this list, I have delisted any country that has a colonial past, or commonwealth past. Hence Ireland could not make this list, though they are not part of the commonwealth today. UAE, USA, France, Kuwait, Bahrain etc all showed up on the list, but I did not include them because they do not have local players.
Filed under: Cricket Development
I’m particularly impressed with Chile, after a mere four years, that’s a lot of people!
I think the big question with these number is how they look over a period of time, i.e. is cricket rising or declining, Denmark is of particular concern in that regard.
I think Denmark’s overall numbers are fine. Their increase has slowed down over the years, but it is still a positive number. Its the composition of their players which bothers one. From a totally indegenous team, they are now having more and more south asians in their team and the locals are getting into other sports. One look at their age level teams will tell you what I am saying.
Cuen, Chile has quite a few people, but I found out very reecently that their standard is extremely low. Their teams cant even stand up to Argentina and make a match out of it. So there is a lot of time required there. But yes, they have done very well. And they are all locals too. At least in the age level teams. Only 3 ethnically Chieans in their senior team yet.
FYI…. Indonesia’s numbers are terrible this year, so you can see the skewed results from last year. Netherlands, Argentina and Denmark are basically the better standard countries in this group.