Beginnings The first game of modern cricket in Belgium appears to have been a match played by British soldiers before the
Battle of Waterloo in 1815, though research has suggested that cricket may be related to a game exported from
Flanders to England in the 16th century. The first record of organised cricket is a painting dated 1870 that hangs in the pavilion of
Lord's Cricket Ground in London that depicts the opening of the Brussels cricket ground in 1866 by mayor
Jules Anspach. The national team first played a match in 1905 when they played against the
Netherlands. The match was played almost every year until 1986. Belgium lost their match against the MCC by an innings and lost to the Netherlands by 116 runs.
ICC membership Belgium became an affiliate member of the ICC in 1991. They fared better in the next tournament, reaching the semi-finals of the 2001 ECC Trophy in
Austria. They finished sixth in the ECC Trophy in 2003, and gained
associate membership of the ICC two years later. and both played and hosted Division Three of the newly restructured European Championship in August 2007, they finished fifth. In 2009, Belgium played in
La Manga Club Ground, again in Division 3. Richard Nash captained the team and finished fourth. In 2011, Belgium hosted the new
2011 ICC European T20 Championship Division Two where they won the championship undefeated. The captain for the T20 squad was André Wagener. Belgium got promoted to Division 1 where they finished a credible 7th out of 12 teams having fielded a weakened team because of visa issues. Their performance qualified them for the WCL 8 qualifier the following year. In 2012, Belgium played the
World Cricket League 8 Qualifier in
La Manga Club Ground where they beat Gibraltar, Austria and France to qualify for the World Cricket league for the first time. Captained by Sheriyar Butt and Simon Newport in this tournament, they will travel to
Samoa in September. On 31 July, the Under-19 Belgium Cricket Team (Aadit Sheth, Aaryan Mehta, Raj Sanghvi, Sabhya Jain, Burhan Niaz, Shaan Shah, Dev Jogani, Aarjav Jain, Alex Uzupris, Theodore Develodore, Aamad Ali Rehman, Rehaan Shah and Zeeshan Diwan Ali), travelled to Essex to participate in the U19 Cricket World Cup Qualifier Europe Division 2.
2018-Present In April 2018, the ICC decided to grant full
Twenty20 International (T20I) status to all its members. Therefore, all
Twenty20 matches played between Belgium and other
ICC members after 1 January 2019 will be a full T20I. Belgium played their first
Twenty20 International on 11 May 2019 against
Germany. In August 2020, Belgium won the
2020 Luxembourg T20I Trophy tournament, after winning all four matches they played in. ==Tournament history==