French cricket

I saw this article in the Mail on Sunday this morning, about cricket becoming popular with young French children. The article is tongue-in-cheek in parts, especially where it imagines how some cricketing terminology (eg silly mid-off, sticky wicket) might be translated into French, but, in fact, cricket is played in France and there is a national association (website here). Rules of the games - with the French words for some basic cricketing terms (batting, run etc) - are given in this pdf document on the site.

 

Introducing the game of cricket in France is not to be confused with the game of French cricket, which I used to play a lot as a child. It's a simplified sort of cricket, played with a bat, but no wickets.

Comments

[John]

Susan,

As a "West Indian at Heart", this piece was great! I was especially struck by the French term for "Out Hit Wicket" - "Autodestruction". That French term would apply perfectly to this Yankee trying to learn to play the game.

"French Cricket" seems to be analagous to "Beach Cricket" played everywhere in Barbados, at least in the Sixties. The similarity extended to a single batsman and caught out, LBW, were the same with various situational "local" rules. Sometimes a plain board or a Boogie Board would be involved, substituting for a real wicket.

Thanks for posting!

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks, John. Yes, I suppose we didn't call it 'beach cricket' because we lived in the middle of a city! But it sounds similar.

[ipl]

Where can I find statistics about the French national cricket team?

[california property investment]

They were very interested in the areas of energy and tourism.

[Food Science Recruitment]

I wonder if Cricket should be taught in schools. Some children are no longer familiar with it.