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Does cricket need a strong Austria?

Bijed

International Regular
Yes, absolutely. In general I think that having a greater number of teams that are able to compete with most/all other teams in all formats at the highest level can only be a good thing for the sport. In the specific case of Austria, however, I think it would be an especially good thing as the 'shining light' in cricket terms for the European continent is the Netherlands, and whilst they're certainly a very respectable side, they're a far cry from being on the level of this hypothetical T20I/ODI/Test-standard Austria. Ergo, if Austria were on the level of even the weaker full ICC members, this would mean unprecedented levels of exposure to cricket for that specific part of the world and admittedly I don't know how much of the population would instantly 'take' to cricket as being a major sport for their nation (or a neighbouring nation, I guess), so you might not get stunning results in the short term with regards to global interest in the sport, but I think you'd definitely see an improvement in this respect, especially in the longer term, and no matter the magnitude, this can only be a good thing.

On a slight tangent, I think really if you could choose one country in that area of the world to suddenly be a legitimate ICC member and competitive team, you'd go for Germany, purely on the grounds that they have a population of 80+ million (for reference, Austria has ~8.6 million), so they're being a strong cricketing nation would be a more sustainable prospect. Also, Germany is a more influential country in European politics than Austria (and I don't mean that as a slight to Austria) and whilst I'm not necessarily envisaging that they'd use their influence to make cricket a more prevalent sport in Europe, it may well have the more passive effect of just getting other countries to focus that little bit more on cricket than they already do.

TL;DR: Yes, because Europe is still a fairly untapped area in terms of cricket



Yes, I know it wasn't a serious question
 
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NUFAN

Y no Afghanistan flag
Yes definitely. My recommendation for the Austrian groundsman is to leave more graz on the pitch.
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
This is the first time I've seen a member with a post count of 0.
I've seen members with 0 post counts, but not one that's posted. Someone should invent an app that can total up everyones posts in the Testing Forum and draw up a league table of non-counted posts.
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
He's made two posts that don't count and neither were relevant to the thread and has 2 likes. It's a shame the latest Battle of the Members has recently finished.
 

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