Cricket is a sport that is followed worldwide and billions of people from all the corners of the world aspire to become professional cricket player one day.
But do you know the name of every nation that has given cricket recognition as its national sport? A national sport is a sport that holds both cultural, emotional, and traditional values and is also popular throughout the year.
Let's get into details!
The Kangaroos have been contesting in cricket for over 200 years now. The first game of the sport was played in Sydney in 1803 and since then, they have never looked back.
The likes of Sir Don Bradman, Ricky Ponting, Glenn McGrath, Mike Hussey, Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, etc. have all been integral figures in the history of the sport in Australia as Australia is also one of the countries where cricket is their national sport.
Australia is currently fourth in the ICC Test rankings, second in ODIs, and fifth in T20Is. However, they have five World Cups which is the most among all the nations that play the sport (1987,1999, 2003, 2007, 2015).
Antigua And Barbuda
A country in the Caribbean, Antigua, and Barbuda also have cricket as their national sport. However, they don't hold much recognition as a team in the sport worldwide.
The pool of players may be small in the nation but it has given the sport some of the great icons whose talents are still embraced in today's times. The first of which is Andy Roberts. Ritchie Richardson, the former captain of the West Indies was also Antiguan, while the likes of Curtley Ambrose and Sir Viv Richards are the other legendary personalities who have everything to cricket.
They are a member of the West Indies Cricket Board, while the West Indies as a whole are a member of the International Cricket Council.
Cricket is the national sport in this region and it has the likes of Jason Holder, Kemar Roach, and Ashely Nurse to have made their names from the sport.
Cricket is a sport that is taken very separately in Bermuda alongside football and it is another place where cricket is celebrated with great passion.
Bermuda have participated in one World Cup that was played in 2007 but their first game in World Cup qualifiers came in 1979.
The founding nation of cricket, England has been in cricket for a long time now and there's no doubt that the sport is the national sport of the country.
England have won World Cups on two occasions, the T20 World Cup in 2010 and the 50-over World Cup in a dramatic style in 2019.
Nasser Hussain, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen, Graeme Swann, Andrew Flintoff, Ben Stokes, and Joe Root are some of the most famous cricketers of England. England are third in the ICC Test rankings, fourth in ODIs, and first in T20Is.
The national cricket team of Grenada may not be a part of the ICC but they still play cricket in the region.
There's a reason why the sport is the national sport of this Caribbean country and the people are intensely in love with the game.
They did feature in the Stanford 20/20 competition in 2006.
Jamaica, The Bahamas, and Turks and Caicos Islands
Their reach in the sport may not be as much as Australia and England but they surely don't compromise in the way they enjoy it.
Hopefully, in the upcoming years, with more encouragement given to the smaller, less recognized nations in the T20Is, we may see a lot of these nations fighting with everything to excel in their national sport.
Which team was the most surprising for you all? Let us know via our Twitter and Instagram handles. Stay Tuned for more!