3 min readMar 31, 2026 03:00 PM IST
Not every country can boast of natural floodlights in multi-colours. But when Finland host their annual ‘overnight cricket camps’ at Helsinki’s Eerikkila the vistas outside can range from dazzling northern lights to minus 6 degrees snow. “Not everyday you drive home from cricket and see this,” a player posted on Instagram.
Finland is to host the ICC Men’s World Cup Europe Group C qualifiers in August, and their team, named the Bears ran with the ‘Summer is coming’ motto, where they trained hard in cricket skills in freezing winters, mostly at nights, waiting for the tournament to arrive.
Announcing their first bilateral iof 2026 against Cyprus (called the Rams), the newbie nation announced, “The hard work through the cold months had been immense and is ongoing. The new look of Bears is built on discipline and effort and Cyprus our first real test.”
It started with the happiest nation installing two cricket wicket surfaces, complete with shockpads, laying low maintenance, high quality surfaces in November.
With the sport getting into Olympics, several rank oblivious nations have taken to the sport, and immigrants from the subcontinent (called Finndians) make a good number of the squad. Vanraaj Padhaal even went briefly viral taking a good catch in an European tournament, for his cross hands celebration.
Their wicketkeeper Jordan O’Brien would also catch up with Brad Haddin around Big Bash.
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Through a frigid January, the designated cricket field of Finish Bears, including a pavilion, was covered with snow. But the indoor camp inside a massive dome structure saw a skills camp where the Bears batters were urged to cut down on the time taken to complete singles and running between wickets with sprint&turn training. The markings on the indoor training surface remained football ones, but the Finns were into pretty heavy strength weight training through the winter.
A small theatre room also beamed tapes of cricket matches with theory lessons. A common feature of the indoor nets was a red strawman figure, positioned as an umpire – complete with a jumper around the neck. ‘Kriketti’ as the sport is called in Helsinki, also trains for coin flips at the toss.
The nets inside the dome are narrow lanes teaching batters to play straight at all times. While outside is an entirely snow filled stairways leading out the facility. “Most teams rest in winter. We build,” Cricket Finland, would post.
Another interesting but about their local cricket league called ‘Cage cricket’s at the Playbox arena, is the net run rate runs up to four decimals, for some reason. Also their crease markings in February indicated not the no-ball line, but the spot from where the delivery release begins, before they changed it by March. The crease remains demarcated by cones.
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“Summer is coming and the bears will be ready,” they would declare on March 15.
