England's male white-ball cricketers are experiencing challenging times. Following their dismal exit from the ODI World Cup last year and a severe defeat by India in the T20 World Cup after barely making it to the semi-finals, the team, now captained by Jos Buttler, has seen a steep decline since their victories in 2019 and 2022.
However, there remains a significant glimmer of hope. England, or more precisely Great Britain, still holds a prestigious international title until at least 2028.
Anticipating Cricket's Olympic Return
As excitement builds for the Paris Olympics, cricket fans eagerly await the sport’s return in the Los Angeles Games four years from now. The selected players for Great Britain's team will arrive in California as defending champions, aiming to retain a title won in Paris 128 years earlier. This unique and intriguing history adds a special charm to the story.
For younger generations, the Somerset market town of Castle Cary is known for its proximity to the Glastonbury Festivalfestival. The nearby village of Ditcheat, home to 14-time Champion Trainer Paul Nicholls, adds to the local sports pedigree. Castle Cary's cricketing history is noteworthy, with the club founded in 1837. In the 1890s, William Donne, an ambitious young man, organised several tours. Donne, who later became president of the Rugby Football Union, was a robust rugby player but also a dedicated cricket administrator. He assembled the Devon & Somerset Wanderers for tours to places like the Lake District, the Channel Islands, and the Netherlands, starting with the Isle of Wight in 1894.
The Unlikely Olympic Champions
In 1900, various sports events were part of the Paris Exposition, later recognised as the 1900 Summer Olympics, though not in the modern sense. Teams from Belgium and Holland were supposed to compete in cricket but withdrew, leaving France and Great Britain to play a two-day, two-innings match at the Vélodrome de Vincennes (now Vélodrome Jacques Anquetil) in eastern Paris. The match had few spectators, but "two dozen" gendarmes, recruited to manage the crowd, observed the game.
Despite the unpopularity of the British due to the Boer War, the atmosphere in Paris was convivial, possibly because the French team was mainly composed of Britons residing in France. The gendarmes, having little to do, reportedly joined the players for post-match celebrations. Five members of the 12-man amateur team, who faced the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques – sometimes referred to as an "All Paris" team – hailed from Castle Cary: Arthur Birkett, Alfred Bowerman, Harry Corner, Frederick Cuming, and Donne. The team's captain, Charles Beachcroft, led Exeter CC at home, and four players were alumni of Blundell’s School in Tiverton.
The team was not an elite squad; it consisted of those who could afford the trip, fit it into their work schedules, and manage family commitments. The match, won by the Devon and Somerset Wanderers by 158 runs, concluded with the final French wicket falling just five minutes before the close. Beachcroft and Cuming excelled with the bat, while Montagu Toller took seven wickets for nine runs in the French second innings, dismissing them for 26. Toller and Bowerman were the only first-class cricketers in the side, with Toller having played with W.G. Grace in 1895.
One of the Old Blundellians later wrote in the school magazine that cricket in France was regarded with a mix of awe and disdain by the average Frenchman, noting that the game was played by a few dedicated Englishmen who ran a couple of clubs, provided excellent competition, treated their opponents royally, and could have won with a bit more luck.
The Legacy and Future of Cricket in the Olympics
The match was not recognised as an Olympic event at the time; it was only in 1912 that Great Britain's victory was acknowledged, and gold medals were awarded to the winners. In 2012, Castle Cary hosted a French Cricket Federation team as part of the club's 175th-anniversary celebrations.
The current location of the Olympic medals is unknown, but they likely exist, perhaps hidden in attics in south-west England. Sports historian Keith Gregson, who continues the research of the late journalist Richard Streeton, is set to publish an updated booklet on this fascinating story.
Cricket’s inclusion in the Olympics has been debated for years. London 2012 was seen as a potential reintroduction point, and Twenty20 at Tokyo 2020 would have been ideal. In 2004, Tim Lamb, then ECB chief executive, described the 20-over format as an exciting product perfect for the Olympics, predicting its growing global popularity, though he couldn't foresee the impact it would have on Test cricket.
As the journey continues to Los Angeles, where organisers have proposed six-team men's and women's competitions with the qualification process yet to be finalised, it is hard to imagine France qualifying to defend its silver medal. Yet, the country’s historical cricket connections are stronger than many realise. In 1998, Sotheby’s sold a manuscript from 1301, the Ghistelles Calendar, said to contain the first known depiction of cricket, showing two boys playing with a bat and ball in Saint-Omer, 25 miles southeast of Calais. In four years, British cricketers will aim to honour the legacy of Donne and his teammates by retaining the Olympic title, though it raises the question: did the French truly invent the game?