Singapore national cricket team

Men's cricket team

the men's team

The Singapore national cricket team is the team that represents Singapore in international cricket. Singapore has been an associate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) since 1974, and was a founding member of the Asian Cricket Council formed in 1983. The Singapore Cricket Club was established in 1837 during the colonial period. Singapore played regular fixtures against other British colonies in Asia beginning in the late 19th century, notably participating in the interport matches. It later contributed players to combined teams representing the Straits Settlements and Malaya. After gaining ICC membership, Singapore played in six out of the first seven editions of the ICC Trophy, beginning in 1979. Post independence, its greatest rivalry is with neighbouring Malaysia, in the annual Stan Nagaiah Trophy. Singapore reached as high as Division Three of the World Cricket League. The team made its Twenty20 International debut in 2019, following the granting of that status to associate members of the ICC, and in the same year participated in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup Qualifier for the first time.

The first recorded mention of cricket in Singapore was in 1837 when a "Mr Z" complained, in a letter to the Singapore Free Press, of cricket being played near a church on a Sunday in violation of the Christian Sabbath. This resulted in cricket being banned on Sundays, a prohibition that remained in place until the 1930s. Cricket was an important recreational activity, with matches often played against the officers of visiting ships. The Singapore Cricket Club was formed in 1852 and played its first match amongst themselves the same year. The quality of cricket in these early years was quite poor, and it wasn't until 1865 before a team total of more than 100 was scored. The Singapore Cricket Club eventually began to play against teams from other parts of British Malaya such as Penang, Perak and Kuala Lumpur and played a match in Jakarta in 1895. Matches against the Federated Malay States began in 1896, and against Shanghai in 1897. They next played in 1957, drawing at home to Ceylon. Various teams visited Singapore in the 1960s, including Worcestershire. They finished fourth out of eight teams in their first round group in the 1982 tournament

Singapore began playing in the Tuanku Ja'afar Cup in 1991, an annual tournament against Malaysia, Hong Kong and Thailand. They won the event just once, in 1994, a year in which they finished 19th out of 20 teams in the ICC Trophy. The Stan Nagaiah Trophy, an annual three match series of one day matches against Malaysia, began the following year. Singapore played in the first ACC Trophy in 1996, beating the Maldives and Thailand They finished 14th in the 1997 ICC Trophy and could only beat Papua New Guinea in the 1998 ACC Trophy,

The first two major tournaments of the 21st century for Singapore got them off to a bad start as they lost all their first round matches in both the 2000 ACC Trophy in the UAE and the 2001 ICC Trophy in Ontario, their final ICC Trophy to date. They hosted the ACC Trophy in 2002, beating the Maldives and Thailand (by 325 runs) but again failing to progress beyond the first round, a performance they repeated in 2004. The finished fourth in the ACC Fast Track Countries Tournament in 2004 and 2005. though they did beat Afghanistan during the first round, who went on to win the tournament. In August 2009, Singapore hosted and won Division Six of the World Cricket League, going through the tournament undefeated and winning promotion back to Division Five. In November 2009, Singapore travelled to the UAE for the 2009 ACC Twenty20 Cup. During the tournament Singapore finished third in Group A, therefore failing to progress to the semi finals and a chance to qualify for the 2010 Asian Games. In the fifth place playoff Singapore lost to Nepal by 9 wickets to finish to tournament in sixth place. In the 2010 ICC World Cricket League Division Five, they finished fourth to remain in Division Five. Hosting the 2012 tournament, they ran out winners, moving them up to Division Four and keeping their hopes of World Cup qualification alive. Singapore has decided to dedicate their strengths in to their SEA GAMES team, where Mohammad Yusof Bin Aslam (Captain) has chosen not to participate due to conflict of interest. In August 2017, Singapore won two medals in cricket at the 2017 Southeast Asian Games. They won the gold medal in the 20 over tournament and the silver medal in the 50 over tournament. On 26 April 2018, ICC released in a press conference that all the men's T20 matches will get T20I status starting from 1 January 2019.

In April 2018, the ICC decided to grant full Twenty20 International (T20I) status to all its members. Therefore, all Twenty20 matches played between Singapore and other ICC members after 1 January 2019 have the full T20I status. Singapore played their first T20I against Qatar on 22 July 2019. On 28 July 2019, after their victory against Nepal in the regional finals of the 2018–19 ICC T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier; Singapore qualified for the ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier for the first time. After April 2019, Singapore will play in the 2019–21 ICC Cricket World Cup Challenge League. In September 2019, Singapore beat Zimbabwe by four runs in the third T20I match of the 2019–20 Singapore Tri Nation Series. It was the first time that Singapore had beaten a Full Member team in an international cricket match.