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View All FixturesThe France national cricket team is the men's team that represents France in international cricket. They became an associate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 1998, having previously been an affiliate member since 1987. The country's national team is best known for winning the silver medal in the cricket event at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, the only time a cricket competition has been held at the Olympics. France now plays most of its matches in European Cricket Council (ECC) tournaments, although the team also appeared at the 2001 ICC Trophy.
One of the many theories about the origin of cricket is that France could be a possible birthplace of the game: a mention of a bat and ball game called "criquet" in a village of the Pas-de-Calais occurs in a French manuscript of 1478, and "criquet" is an old French word meaning "post" or "wicket". However, it is also possible that this could be an early variant of croquet. Horace Walpole, son of former British Prime Minister Robert Walpole mentioned seeing cricket in Paris in 1766. The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) were due to make the first ever international cricket tour of France, in 1789, however this was cancelled due to the French Revolution. This match was finally played in 1989, as part of the bicentennial celebrations of the revolution, with France beating the MCC by 7 wickets. The first documented match took place in the Bois de Boulogne between Paris Cricket Club and Nottingham Amateurs in 1864. The Paris Cricket Club published a book explaining the game the following year.
The first, and so far only, appearance of cricket at the Olympic Games took place in 1900, with the French team losing the only match played to Great Britain: France therefore remain the reigning silver medalist until 2028, when cricket will return to the Olympic Games (in the Twenty20 format). The French team, however, consisted of ten British residents in Paris and two Frenchmen, members of the Standard Athletic Club. The match was twelve-a-side, and the following players represented France:
Philip Tomalin (captain) William Anderson William Attrill John Braid W. Browning (wicket-keeper) Robert Horne Timothée Jordan Arthur MacEvoy Douglas Robinson H. F. Roques Alfred Schneidau Henry Terry
The Standard Athletic Club restaged the 1900 Olympic cricket match in 1987, and France played the MCC in Meudon in 1989. In 1910, France took part in an exhibition tournament in Brussels, also involving the MCC, the Netherlands and Belgium. They played one game, against the Netherlands, winning by 63 runs.
From the Wikipedia article "France national cricket team", available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
