FRENCHMEN AND CRICKET.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 57, 4 September 1926, Page 7

FRENCHMEN AND CRICKET.

Why is it that the game of cricket' has not flourished in France like the other games introduced by British residents? Very serious attempts have been made to popularise it during the last forty years, but interest has not been, sustained, and to-day cricket in France is played by members of the British colonies exclusively. But there took place yesterday on the Stade Francais ground, in the Saint Cloud Park, an event which may lead to a permanent French revival and prove a landmark in the history of the game. Forty; French officers, from... the Joinville Training School, intently watched a demonstration of the game given by two elevens formed from the best British teams in the Paris district. Never before, probably, has cricket been played in such "a novel setting. One heard strange terms, but generally, one could recognise .their parental . derivation Thus, when one of the natives who was explaining the game, , exclaimed: "There! He is bowle," we understood, and so we did each time the wicket was referred to as the guichet. But it was not as easy to grasp that eourte .glisse meant short-slip, or that a largeur stood for a wide. Jambe carree was direct enough, perhaps, but when an, unofficial interpreter was heard to explain that ■> bowler had bowled deux larguers dans une seule allumette, meaning that the culprit had bowled two" wides in one match," we were at first piizzled'