World Beyond the Cup - Tete-a-Tete with Brian Mantle, CEO, Cricket Germany

This interview is our second one with Brian. The first one https://www.diehardcricketfans.in/2013/06/in-conversation-with-brian-mantle.html was 6 years back.
We wanted to do a follow up interview go gauge the progress made by German Cricket in these years.

DHCF : What is the difference you see in German Cricket since the time of our last conversation back in 2013? How much has changed in terms of both numbers and structure?

BM: German cricket is completely different to 2013. The numbers have gone through the roof and we now have about 6000 people playing competitive hard ball cricket in Germany. We have an established women's structure with more and more teams and the amount of refugees from cricket playing countries, particularly Afghanistan, has seem men's cricket teams sprouting up all over the country. We have established performance pathways and are currently in the middle of the fifth season of the DCB Super Series which is our performance competition. This didn't exist way back in 2013 and it has seen an improvement in high level cricket.

DHCF: It is so refreshing to see Germany playing against Belgium/Italy not in a football match but a cricket match. What do you think has been the impact of T20I status been given to Associate nations? With official international matches on the horizon, what does it translate into in terms of support and growth?

BM: It intensifies everything we do. These games being T20Is adds meaning to all the games. There is also a clear and simple structure to ICC T20 tournaments and every country now knows what they have to do in order to reach the next stage of World Cup qualification and even to get to the biggest stage of all. In T20 cricket at least the glass ceilings have been taken out.

In conversation with - Brian Mantle, Manager of the German Cricket team

With this post, Karan has made a steady debut at interviewing men who matter!

This one, is with Mr. Brian Mantle, the Manager of the German International Cricket Team (Officially known as the DCB- The Deutscher Cricket Bund) . Well, it is only fair that I start off by thanking him for being kind enough to take some precious time off his schedule to answer my questions about Cricket in Germany. It was due to the plain curiosity to know about the challenges faced to promote Cricket in a predominantly Football-crazy country, that I approached Mr. Mantle. And sure enough, he was generous to oblige this new Germany fan, with an interview.

Getting down to business, here’s what ensued from the questionnaire I had prepared for Mr. Mantle..You would ask,”um… Germany? Do they even play Cricket?” Yes, though they may not be among the world’s best teams, Deutschland is making progress through leaps and bounds. They are currently ranked 37th in the ICC rankings and I hope we see them in the top-twenty very soon.
To make matters familiar with you, Cricket in Germany has been like Football in India, except, these Germans are way better at their Cricket than we are at Football. But yes, the challenges to promote the sports are pretty much the same.