Tanzania

Cricket was first played in what is now Tanzania on the island of Zanzibar by the British Navy as recreation for the officers and crew. Cricket spread to Tanganyika after the British took over the League of Nations mandate in 1919. Cricket began to be concentrated mostly on the coast and on Zanzibar, with particular development in Dar-es-Salaam. Population from the Indian subcontinent quickly took up the game and by the 1930s formed the majority of the players, with a significant European minority.

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 and Zanzibar also played matches against Uganda, beginning in 1956. Other opponents from further afield also toured, with Tanganyika playing the MCC in 1957 and 1963, a South African non-Europeans side in 1958 (who also played Zanzibar) and Pakistan International Airlines in 1964. 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.

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 cricketing standards declined. 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.