Indonesia have reached 100 Men’s T20 Internationals just three years after playing their first, becoming the 12th Associate nation in cricket history to achieve the milestone and securing their place among the most remarkable development stories the global game has produced. ICC Head of Global Development William Glenwright, who marked the occasion on LinkedIn, has watched the program take shape from the inside — and his assessment leaves little room for ambiguity. “Indonesia is one of our most exciting markets: and the growth of cricket in the 4th biggest country on Earth is inspiring,” he wrote.
A competition calendar that left every nation behind
Indonesia’s appetite for international cricket has translated into a schedule that no other country — Associate or Full Member — could match in 2024. Glenwright described it as “an eye-popping international competition program that last year saw them play the most T20Is of any country in the world: 45 Men’s T20 Internationals in a single year.” That momentum has carried into the current cycle. Indonesia recently welcomed the Swedish Men’s national team for a home series and are due to depart for Malaysia next month for a Men’s Bilateral T20I fixture, with the program showing no signs of slowing.
Women’s cricket writing its own chapter
The women’s side has been building its own record of firsts alongside the men. Indonesia secured qualification for the ICC U19 Women’s Cricket World Cup in 2023, the first time the country had reached that stage of the global pathway. Once there, they produced a landmark victory against Zimbabwe — a Full Member nation — that gave the wider cricket world reason to pay attention. Their most recent campaign ended with a runners-up finish to Samoa at the East-Asia Pacific Qualifier, a result that points to a program still finding higher gears.
A participation base growing faster than almost anywhere in the game
The scale of what is happening at grassroots level in Indonesia is where the story becomes genuinely extraordinary. Glenwright noted that “the performance of their national teams is no accident – it is the culmination of a participation pathway that is introducing cricket to more boys and girls at a staggering rate.” In 2024 alone, more than 120,000 children experienced cricket for the first time in Indonesia. The numbers feeding into formal registration structures since 2022 tell their own story — senior Men’s participation has risen by 150%, senior Women’s by 130%, and junior player numbers have doubled across the same period.
Venues, coaching and a partnership raising the floor
Sustaining that growth requires more than enthusiasm, and Indonesia has been building the infrastructure to match its ambitions. A partnership with the Western Australian Cricket Association has been instrumental in lifting the technical standards of coaches, umpires, and sports science practitioners operating within the Indonesian system. The same collaboration has provided expertise for two newly developed international cricket venues — one in Bali, another in East Nusa Tenggara — facilities that give the program a physical foundation worthy of its international profile.
Abhiram Singh Yadav and the team driving Indonesia’s cricket ambition
Behind the milestone and the numbers sits the work of Persatuan Cricket Indonesia and the leadership of Abhiram Singh Yadav, whose team has been central to driving the country’s cricketing ambitions forward. The program’s rapid ascent across men’s, women’s, and junior cricket reflects the organisational groundwork laid at the national federation level, supported by the ICC’s Global Development structure. Glenwright was unequivocal about what that combination has produced. “Persatuan Cricket Indonesia represents everything that is possible through our ICC-built, Member-driven philosophy of growth,” he stated. For a nation of roughly 280 million people — the fourth most populous on earth — the boundaries of what Indonesian cricket can achieve remain wide open, and with a bilateral series against Malaysia next on the schedule, the program that reached 100 T20Is in three years shows every indication of accelerating further still.
