Austria

One of the very recent additions to the ICC men's T20 international is Austria. The wave of modern cricket in Austria began as late as May 1975, when the Australian English teacher Kerry Tattersall introduced the game at the Vienna Handelsakademie, which was a commercial academy and later went on to form the Vienna Cricket Club. The Austrian Cricket team is organised by the Austrian Cricket Association. Austrian Cricket Association Became an affiliate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 1992 and an associate member in 2017.

The ICC granted the status of full T20 Internationals to the team members in April 2018. Since then, The Austrian cricket team has continuously represented the Republic of Austria in Twenty20 International matches. Cricket is not generally a popular sport in Austria, and the national team has limited international matches compared to other strong cricketing countries in Europe. However, efforts have been made to promote Cricket in Austria in recent years and their growth is very much evident in their performance in recent past.

The Austria national team made their international debut as an International T20 team against Romania on 29 August 2019 during the 2019 Continental Cup in Romania. After that Austrian Cricket team regularly competed in European Cricket Council tournaments. Also, the Austrian Cricket team often plays bilateral series against other European sides.

In their debut match against Romania on 29 August 2019 during the 2019 Continental Cup, the Austrian playing XI consisted of players like Anthony Lark, Amit Nathwani, Abdullah Akbarjan, Abrar Bilal, Aqib Iqbal, Bilal Zalmai, Habib Ahmadzai, Kunal Joshi, Mark Simpson Parker, Mirza Ahsan, Razmal Shigiwal who made their international debut with the national team. In this match, Austria won the toss and chose to field first. Batting first Romania put up a total of 137 runs at the loss of 7 wickets. The best bowling performance came from Bilal Zalmani who took a 4-wicket haul right in his debut match at the cost of only 12 runs from his 4 overs. He recorded an outstanding economy of 3.00 in the spell. Other bowlers who delivered were Amit Nathwani and Mark Simpson Parker who took 1 wicket each giving 35 and 19 runs respectively.

With a target of 138 in mind the Austrian Team came out to bat. But unfortunately, they could not reach the target as they ran out of wickets in the last over. They could only manage to get to the score of 107 runs and fell short of the target by 31 runs. Despite the amazing performance of the bowlers the batters could not catch up. The two highest contributors with the bat were Anthony Lark and Abdullah Akbarjan with 30 and 29 runs off 41 and 17 balls respectively. They recorded a strike rate of 73.17 and 170.58 respectively. Though they lost their debut match, they proved to be a promising opponent and promised to improve themselves by leaps and bounds in their upcoming T20I matches.

Austrian Cricket Team Owner

The Austrian Cricket team is organised rather than owned by the Austrian Cricket Association. The Austrian Cricket Association Became an affiliate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in early 1992 and then an associate member recently in 2017. Thereafter the Austrian Cricket team began a new journey of international cricket.

Austrian Cricket Team Brand Value

The Austrian Cricket team started playing international cricket in the last 30 years and generally, they are very unpopular. For that reason, the Austrian Cricket team doesn't have any specific brand value. Considering the quality of cricket in Austria, which has increased greatly compared to when they started, their brand value is only predicted to rise sharply in the near future.

Performance of Austrian Cricket Team in ICC Men's T20 World Cup Qualifiers 2022

The Austrian Cricket team is veteran. They have not yet played many international matches in their entire cricketing history. Thus lacking international experience. But the development in the quality of cricket and awareness about the gentleman's game is still underway in Austria.

In 2022 The Austrian Cricket Team played the ICC men's T20 World Cup sub-region Europe qualifier, for the first time in the history of Austrian Cricket, where they competed against various European cricketing countries such as Slovenia, Luxembourg and many others. The Austrian Cricket team played 4 league-stage matches and 1 final match. And emerged victorious in the qualifiers but did not qualify for the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2022.

On 24th July 2022, the Austrian Cricket Team played their first league stage match against Luxembourg. In this match, Luxembourg won the toss and elected to field first. Austria scored 139 losing all 10 of their wickets in 18.4 overs. Iqbal Hossain was the top run scorer for Austria. In the match, he scored 34 runs in just 16 balls with a strike rate of 212.50. The strong bowling line-up of the Austrian Cricket team easily defended their total and washed out the Luxembourg team for a low total of 104 runs in 18 overs. Sahel Zarden was the best contributor with the ball. He took 3 wickets giving away just 7 runs with an economy of 2.33. Later in the award ceremony, Sahel Zadran was awarded man of the match for his excellent bowling performance.

On 25th July 2022 Austrian Cricket Team played their second league match against Slovenia. Slovenia won the toss and analyzing the pitch and weather conditions, they elected to field first. The Austrian Cricket team came out to bat first and scored a massive 214 runs losing only 4 wickets in their quota of 20 overs. Mirza Ahsan played an extraordinary innings of 70 runs in just 33 balls with a strike rate of 212.12. Coming out to bat to chase a huge 215 runs off 120 balls Slovenia only managed to score 73 in 17.1 overs. The Austrian Cricket team claimed an easy win of 141 runs. The Boers did an amazing job in the match by restricting the chase to a two-digit score by picking up all their wickets. Mirza Ahsan was declared the man of the match for his excellent batting performance of an unbeaten 70 runs off 33 balls.

On 27th July 2022 Austrian Cricket Team played their third match against Guernsey. Guernsey won the toss and chose to bat first. Guernsey came to bat and scored 139 for the loss of 6 wickets in their 20 overs. Luke le Tissier was their top run scorer who scored 37 runs off 28 balls. The Austrian Cricket team were given a target of 140 runs to chase in their 20 overs. In the chase, Razmal Shigiwal scored 42 runs in 29 balls, which helped the Austrian Cricket team to chase down the target with almost zero pressure. The Austrian Cricket team clinched a 2-wicket victory against Guernsey. Razmal Shagiwal was awarded man of the match for his excellent batting performance of 42 runs from 29 balls.

On 30th July 2022 Austrian Cricket Team played their fourth and last group stage match against Bulgaria. The Austrian captain won the toss and sent Bulgaria to the field first. The Austrian Cricket team came out to bat and scored a massive 206 runs losing 4 wickets in 20 overs. This gave the Bulgarian team a target of 207 runs to chase from 20 overs. Austria's top run scorer was Armaan Randhawa. He scored 78 runs in just 45 balls. In chase of a huge 207 runs target Bulgaria only scored 48 in 11.3 overs before losing all 10 wickets. The Austrian Cricket team claimed a huge and easy win of 158 runs. Armaan Randhawa was the man of the match for his excellent batting performance of 78 runs off 45 balls.

The Austrian Cricket team played the final of the ICC men's T20 World Cup sub-region Europe qualifier, where they faced Norway. Norway won the toss and they thought to bat first and set a big score in front of Austria. But their performance did not go as planned. Norway just scored 77/10 in 12.4 overs. Amit Nathwani took 3 wickets for just 14 runs. In the case of 78 runs, Austria chased that in just 8.1 overs. Iqbal Hossain scored an excellent 66 runs in 36 balls. He took his team to an easy win of 9 wickets. Again Iqbal Hossain was declared the much-awaited man of the match for his excellent batting performance of 66 not out from 36 balls.

The Austrian Cricket team won the ICC men's T20 World Cup sub-region Europe qualifier but unfortunately was not able to qualify for the ICC men's T20 cricket World Cup 2022. But they presented a decent performance as the first ever world cup qualifiers for the Austrian team. Keeping in mind that they are still a new team and have a long way to go, winning the ICC men's T20 World Cup sub-region Europe qualifier is a huge boost in self-esteem for the players and also the Austrian Cricket Board.

Though they could not qualify for the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2022, they proved to be worth the wait for the next T20 World Cup. In the next season, they will look to come back stronger than ever and qualify for the same. They will be carrying the hopes of all Austrian cricket fans, young or old as they come out on the cricket pitch for the qualifiers next time.

Stats of Austrian Cricket Team Players

Being an underdog of European cricketing nations, the Austrian Cricket team has a lot more success to achieve soon. The Austrian Cricket team has the potential to be successful in cricket. Austrian Cricket associations have to use their players' strength to grow up in European cricket. The Austrian Cricket team has some good batters like Mirza Ahsan, Razmal Shigiwal, and Iqbal Hossain. Some good bowlers like Amit Nathwani, Abdullah Akbarjan, and Sahel Zadran. The following subpoints contain the list of the top five run scorers and top five wicket-takers for the Austrian National team throughout its journey.

Top Run Scorers for Austrian Cricket Team

The Austrian National team showcases a great blend of power hitters and calm batters in their arguably strong batting line-up. The following table is a highlight of the top five run scorers for the Austrian Cricket Team from their first international match to the most recent one.

The leaderboard of the top five run scorers is topped by the captain himself. Razmal Shigiwal scored a total of 792 runs from the 29 matches he was a part of with a career average of 37.71 per match and a strike rate of 144.26.

Name of the Player	Matches Played	Runs Scored	Average	Strike Rate
Razmal signal	29	792	37.71	144.26
Iqbal Hossain	15	418	34.83	177.11
Mirza ahsan	22	403	26.86	181.53
Mark Simpson parker	25	324	19.05	99.69
Bilal zalmai	8	259	43.16	175.00

Top Wicket Takers for Austrian Cricket Team

The Austrian team is a beautiful mix of spin and pace bowlers in their bowling line-up. They also have brought the team victory in several matches. The following table shows the list of top wicket-takers for the Austrian National Team.

Amit Nathwani tops the leaderboard of the top five wicket-takers for the Austrian Cricket team. He has bagged 28 wickets from the 20 matches that he played so far in his career. He averages 13.39 per match and has an economy of 5.95.

Name of the Player	Matches Played	Wickets Taken	Average	Economy
Amit Nathwani	20	28	13.39	5.95
Aqib iqbal	26	28	18.64	5.86
Abdullah akberjan	23	27	16.29	6.04
Shahil momin	14	24	12.66	5.69
Sahel zadran	23	20	23.00	7.05

With Razmal Shigiwal back as the captain of the Austrian Cricket team, the squad of the Austrian cricket team will be looking to do something special so that they achieve more success in the future. Moreover, the Austrian Cricket Team has the potential to become a good team in Europe and world cricket. They need good performance, strong connection with teammates and great discipline. So we probably say that the Austrian Cricket Team will rise soon.