Early matches

Distance between Tanganyika and other countries in the African Great Lakes meant that the first international was not played until 1951, when Tanganyika lost by an innings to Kenya. Occasional matches against Kenya and Uganda continued throughout the 1950s^[4] and Zanzibar also played matches against Uganda, beginning in 1956.^[7]

Other opponents from further afield also toured, with Tanganyika playing the MCC in 1957^[8] and 1963,^[9] a South African Non-Europeans side in 1958 (who also played Zanzibar)^[10] and Pakistan International Airlines in 1964.^[11] The occasional matches against Kenya and Uganda eventually led to a formal triangular tournament being introduced in 1967, later to become a quadrangular tournament with the addition of Zambia.^[4]

Decline

As many businesses were nationalised in the early 1970s, much of the Indian and British population began to leave the country. Cricketers, including John Solanky, who went on to play for Glamorgan, were amongst those who left the country, and standards went into decline.^[4]

Since the 1970s, the Tanzania Cricket Association has concentrated on developing the game amongst the African communities, and the national side now contains between 20 and 25% African players. The national side returned to form in the mid-1990s, when they were runners-up in two Africa-wide tournaments in 1994 and 1995, though there was again a slight decline in the late 1990s.^[4]

ICC membership

The Tanzania Cricket Association became an associate member of the ICC in 2001^[5] (Tanzania had previously played international cricket as part of the combined East Africa and East and Central Africa teams) opening up new opportunities for Tanzanian cricket. The first matches for the national side as an ICC member were in the 2002 Africa Cup^[4] where they lost all four of their matches.^[12]

They showed improvement by the Africa Cricket Association Championship in 2004, where they still finished last, but did beat Zambia in the final match of the tournament, which was a qualifying event for the 2005 ICC Trophy.^[13] Even more improvement was shown in the equivalent tournament two years later, when they won Division Two of the World Cricket League Africa Region.^[14] This result qualified Tanzania for Division Three of the World Cricket League in Darwin in 2007. Tanzania finished sixth in that tournament after losing to Hong Kong in a play-off, which relegated them to Division Four.^[15]

In 2008, Tanzania hosted Division Four of the World Cricket League. In this tournament they finished fourth, which meant that they remained in Division Four for the next tournament in 2010, played in Italy, where they came 4th again, thus remaining for 2012 ICC World Cricket League Division Four.