How did cricket originate in Tanzania?

Hi friends in this article let us discuss about how the game of cricket was started playing in the African nation Tanzania and its development.

History goes way back to the late 18th centuary,when the British Settlers were settled in Tanzania, which gave way for cricket to be played in Tanzania.According the official report,the first ever known recorded match took place in the Island called Zanzibar in 1890 and this match was between the British Settlers and the British Navy.

This is how in Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam(Which is the largest city in Tanzania) the game could be traced back to early 1890 before the First World War.Before the Independence of Tanzania the main reason for cricket's development was during the three colonial countries of East Africa was formed with the combination of three countries

i)Kenya

ii)Uganda and

iii)Tanganyika

Cricket in Tanzania - Its developmemnt

But it was in 1913, the first ever official match was recorded in the mainland of Tanzania,and for the next 70 years the game of cricket was played in this country between the three East African countries i.e. between Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika, and these three countries made the East African Cricket Conference

From the early 1923, competitive cricket was played in Dar es Salaam began in 1923 when Satchu Pira Brothers presented the Dar es Salaam Cricket League with a trophy known as the Satchu Pira Shield for a league competition. Apart form this, in 1933 Karimjee Jivanjee also presented a cup known as the KJ Cup and this cup was for the competition on a Knock out basis.

Finally in 1933 Dar es Salaam Cricket League decided that they should form a Governing body so that they can develop and control cricket in Dar es Salaam and as a result a preliminary meeting appointed a committee to work the plan and also for framing the rules 

According to that a meeting was arranged on 20th March, 1935 and this meeting was attended by representative of all cricket clubs and they aslo passed the rules and finally this gave way to Dar es Salaam Cricket Association(DCA) .

The first president of this association was Mr. G. J. Patrige and Mr. P. E. Mitchell,was selected as the acting Governor, kindly consented to become the first patron of the Association.  But the association was not having enogh funds and they were not having a ground of its own and sadlt they had to rely on the courtesy of ground owning clubs for the use of their grounds for competition matches.

Duringthe World War 2,there was no competition held. Again after the second world was in 1946,very competitive cricket was started again.It was in 1961 after the independance of Tanzania, the Tanzania Cricket Association was formed.Previously the Tanzanian Cricket Association was formerly called as Tanganyika Cricket Association .

It was in 1971 the Tanzanian Government, Nationalized the Banks and Housesand this made many cricketers of Indian and British origin to migrate from the country and this left a gap in the game as players from these two origin was performin well in Tanzanian cricket.

But during mid 1970's the game has been played well by the new generation of sportsmanand this alos resulted in formation new clubs.

International Exposure

The only way they get the international exposure is due to the visit India, Pakista and MCC Cricket sides to Tanzania and this happens regularly so as to ensure that the game of cricket is a well developed one in Tanzania.Many World-class cricketers came to Tanzania as a part of the community that was trying to develop cricket in Tanzania.

Of this, the important players includes

i)Kapil Dev

ii)Pataudi

iii)G.R. Vishwanath

iv)Anshuman Gaekwad

v)V.V. Kumar

vi)A.H. Kardar

vii)Eknath Solkar

viii)Kirmani

ix)Karsan Gowri

x)Hanif Mohamed

xi)Gulam Parker

Apart form these players others also came to Tanzania to play with theor cricket team .Apart from this the Ugandan and Kenyan youth teams also  frequently tour Tanzania, under the East African Cooperation platform. 

Domestic events and Development

In Tanzania, the domestic competition usually runs from June to April every year and apart from this the Senior cricket consists of Tournaments which was organized by Dar es Salaam Regional Cricket Committee in Dar es Salaam region and Arusha Regional Cricket Committee in Arusha.

The Tanzanian Cricket Association(TCA) development committee was set up and this committe annually organises a modified game for juniors popularly which is famously  known as "Chanzo Cricket" festivals and mainly this event is played with soft ball and it involves 20 primary schools in all regions.

The format usually played is T20 and 30-overand it is played with hard ball for juniors which involves primary and secondary schools and it is played twice a year for both male and female> For this event around 60 youths are selected anually and promoted to attend elite training at the Muhimbili Cricket Academy so that they could learn the right basics and skills of the game which eventually broadens and strengthens the pyramid base of their cricket developmen

For the develoment of the game TCA in 2000 set up a development program for juniors at grassroots, which attracted a lot youths both male nd female and today Cricket is played in many primary and secondary schools.

Infrastructure

There are four Cricket grounds in Dar es Salaam with players pavilion at

i)Anadil Burhani Club

ii)Dar es Salaam Gymkhana Club

iii)Leader's Club and

iv)Dar es Salaam University College.

The infrastructure was developed and all the four grounds have been upgraded from artificial Astro turf wickets to turf wickets.Apart from this this infrasturcture development to upgrade Cricket grounds was also taking place in Tanga, Arusha Mwanza for future.

National Team

At present the Tanzania team consists mostly of young players and they have a very bright future.Tanzania also hosted ICC Division 3 Africa, in 2006 ,which consists of teams from Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, Nigeria, and in this competition the Tanzanian National team has emerged as winners of the event.

Apart from this the Tanzanian team also traveled to Mumbai,in April 2007 , and they also played several friendly matches with the local clubsTanzania also hosted a Division 4 event in 2008, called as Pepsi ICC World Cricket League and also participated in this tournament.

Apart from the Men team Tanzania has also a produced good girls national teams who are selected from their development programmes and they participate in the East Africa women's tournament which is played annually and they are able to sustained their champions title for seven consecutive uears until they were by Uganda in 2008.Apart from this Tanzanian Women cricket team became runner up in the women's World Cup Qualifying Series for Africa region after losing to Zimbabwe.