Top 10 nations which have impressed in darts

#2 Netherlands

'Barney' is sporting royalty in the Netherlands.

England or the Netherlands? That was always the question. To list the talented players of both nations would be impossible to do without writing an essay of just the names. For us, the Dutch are just behind at the moment despite having the best player in the world as a part of their fold. After Raymond van Barneveld inspired literally an entire nation, the sport became the second most popular behind football, a phenomenon only ever seen in Germany after that.

Aside from Van Gerwen, dutch stars reel off the tongue with Jeffrey de Zwaan, Jermaine Wattimena, Danny Noppert, Vincent Van der Voort, Ron Meulenkamp, Wesley Harms, Martijn Kleermaker and Richard Veenstra all at the very top of their nation's darts iceberg, which we have only covered the very tip of. In the popular non-professional tournament the nation holds, the Dutch Open, almost six thousand, yes six thousand, entered last month, proving the astonishing devotion of the Netherlands to darts.

---

#1 England

Darts master Phil Taylor is easily the greatest player of all time.

While having easily the largest legion of darts players in the professional darts world, the home nation of the sport are distinctly lacking in players at the very peak of the sport's mountain. Van Gerwen of the Netherlands, Wright and Anderson of Scotland and Gerwyn Price are the top four players in the world and for the first time ever no English player made a world final in the PDC or BDO World Championship.

You might be asking how England have been put ahead of the Netherlands in this case, but the lack of major titles is a problem that simply veils over the dominant nature of English darts. Half of the top 20 in the world are English as opposed to just two of each other nation at the most while over 50% comprise the top 32 players, which is the number considered to be representative of the world-class section of darts.

As far as professionals go, there are 59 English professionals and the top players include Rob Cross, Michael Smith and Nathan Aspinall. Cross is a former world champion and not the only pro who can claim that feat. Adrian Lewis, Stephen Bunting, Glen Durrant, Steve Beaton, Scott Waites and former four-time women's champion Lisa Ashton are all world-class operators, while Smith and Aspinall are considered likely future champions, especially Smith, who is hailed as a potential darting great of the future.