A 12-a-side, two-day match in a cycling stadium in Paris in 1900 remains the only cricketing contest ever at the Olympics.
Cricket was named among the listed sports in Des Jeux Olympiques de 1896, the provisional programme for the 1896 Athens Olympics, but there were too few teams. It was unfortunate, for had cricket been played, it would have been the first team sport in the history of the Games.
The organisers did manage to get four teams for Paris 1900. These included the Netherlands – who boasted of Carst Posthuma, the first great cricketer from the European mainland – Belgium, France, and Great Britain, but the first two teams withdrew. The competition still went ahead.
The French cricket team comprised all clubs that were members of the Français de Sports Athletiques, the local association. However, they ended up choosing the teams exclusively from the Union Club and the Standard Athletic Club, both of which were founded in 1890 by British expatriates who had been working on the Eiffel Tower. They were led by Philip Tomalin.
Five sports have been proposed by the @LA28 Organising Committee for inclusion at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in five years' time:
— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) October 9, 2023
⚾ Baseball-softball
🏏 Cricket
🏈 Flag football
🥍 Lacrosse
⚫ Squash
The final decision will be made in the coming days. pic.twitter.com/kU1303jY0A
Six years before the Paris Olympics, one William Donne had formed a team – the Devon and Somerset Wanderers – for a tour of the Isle of Wight. Almost every cricketer was either a member of the Castle Cary Cricket Club or an alumnus of the Blundell’s School in Somerset. It was more of a group of amateurs whose selection depended less on merit and more on “who could get a fortnight off from work”. This team was touring France at this point. They ended up being the Great Britain team at the Olympics.
Great Britain were the better of the two teams. Their line-up boasted of Montagu Toller, who had played six times for Somerset in 1897, and was good enough to make it to the trial of the England rugby union side. There was also Alfred Bowerman, who had debuted for Somerset a couple of months ago. Across the two sides, Toller and Bowerman were the only first-class cricketers. Donner was still around, while Exeter opener CBK Beachcroft led them.
This “match de cricket France contre Angleterre” was widely promoted, but none of the posters or handbills included the word “Olympics” in any language. The Municipal Velodrome de Vincennes,, with a banked cycling track inside the boundary, was the venue for the two-day match. The ground could accommodate 20,000, but not many locals turned up to watch this peculiar sport.
Both sides decided to add another player to the team, making it a 12-a-side contest. This was a decision taken so late that the printed scorecards had already been published, and the 12th names had to be added by hand.
Frederick Cuming top-scored in Great Britain’s first-innings total of 117 as William Anderson claimed four wickets. In response, France made 78 against Frederick Christian, who claimed seven wickets. The scoring was probably not the most meticulous: the batting scorecard added up to 76, two fewer than the team total.
Bolstered by the 39-run lead, Great Britain declared on 145-5 as time Beachcroft (59) and Bowerman (54) both made fifties. Toller then claimed seven wickets to bowl out France for 26. The hosts were “too excitable to enjoy the game,” wrote a contemporary journalist, and could not be “persuaded to play more than once”. Both sides were presented with medals and miniature Eiffel Tower replicas.
The postscript was more dramatic than the cricket. As the cricketers boarded the coach back to the hotel, they found the driver too drunk to drive. A replacement driver was found... but he, too, was drunk, but the cricketers agreed to have him. The coach obviously met with an accident, though no one thankfully had anything more than minor injuries.
Cricket was obviously not part of the Olympics at St Louis 1904 or Stockholm 1912, or, somewhat surprisingly, at London 1908. Perhaps it was because London was a replacement option when Mount Vesuvius erupted and the Games had to be moved away from Rome.
By 1912, the cricket match lay forgotten. After all, the game was not billed as part of the Olympics. Then, in 1912, when the International Olympic Committee listed the definitive list of medal events from the first five Games, they did include the 24 cricketers.
However, the game does not have first-class status.
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