Why is it, Rex wants to know, that the French were more than happy to adopt rugby and rebrand it as their own while shunning the game of cricket? How come a nation that tunes in every July to watch three weeks of volcanic-calved men pedal through the French countryside considers a three-hour game of T20 too long?
And don’t mention a five-day Test. Even the attraction of a lunch break can’t pull our gallic neighbours out of the tailspin: “Forty minutes? Bof. Vous insultez le principe du dejeuner. Make it two hours and maybe we can talk.”
Poor old Rex, or to give him his full name, Rex Constantine Vaughan Williams.
He can be a bit irascible at times but in his own words he is a “cricket missionary on Mission Impossible”. He is also the central character in the one-man show ‘Vive Le Cricket’ which hits the London stage in August, his experiences as a cricket commentator in France, loosely based on my own.
It’s always a great icebreaker to drop the fact that you commentate on cricket but mentioning you do it in French can silence a room.
After the initial round of “But the French don’t play cricket” (to which the answer is: “Well they may actually have invented the game back in the 15th century”) come the inevitable glossary posers.
“So what do you call the wicket and the keeper?” That’ll be le guichet if you mean the stumps or elimination if you mean a dismissal … a keeper is the gardien de guichet.
“What about bouncer? Yorker? And googly?” Sorry to disappoint but these are le bouncer, le yorker and le googly, all done with a stage French accent, naturellement.
“So are the slips just les slips?” Erm, no that would be underpants, or knickers, depending on who is fielding there.
My late and much lamented Eurosport colleague Dave Crossan took first dig on French commentary in the 2009 T20 World Cup when England famously lost to the Netherlands.
David, a fervent Essex fan who never quite forgave his mum for accidentally washing the Nasser Hussain signature off his sunhat, was a consummate professional who wrote that his job was “to clarify and simplify”.
“I know the intricacies of jambe devant guichet (LBW) will be too much for the audience to handle.”
I was a little further down the batting order, making my French debut behind the mic in the T20 Champions League in 2012 – a first sight of a young Joe Root – when they paired a Frenchie who was fluent in, er, French with an Anglo who was fluent in cricket.
Some of our gallic counterparts were excellent, well-briefed and enthusiastic, others less so. One, who felt he was fluent in both, began each innings by spending the powerplay reading the definition of cricket on the French Wiki, including each and every method of dismissal, while neglecting the action on the field.
To my eternal shame, this resulted in a petulant stand-off during the 2012 T20 World Cup final with each of us flicking the other’s mute button in order to deliver our own version of the commentary.
– CRICKET MISSIONARY –
After Eurosport ended its coverage in 2015, Sport En France padded up with the European Cricket Network’s T10 competitions which featured either France or a French club team. Slap bang wallop but all over in 90 minutes, the football time slot that fans and broadcasters can still grasp.
The highlight of this was the evening in March 2023 when French side Dreux beat English village winners Hornchurch to become T10 European club champions.
There were no Hallelujahs in the cafes but it was a sign that, in spite of unrest around the federation (which needs an article all of its own) the game does have more than a light pulse, bolstered by the passion of the Asians.
The game has certainly moved on since the days when 12 players from the Standard Athletic club pulled on the whites to play for France against Great Britain in the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris.
Never mind that they were all English and lost a two-innings game by 158 runs, France remain the reigning Olympic silver medallists, at least until LA 2028.
Rex is proud of that and visits Meudon to gaze on the medal. It is here that he meets Pierre, a living, breathing Frenchman who cares passionately about the game.
“I see myself as a cricket missionary,” says Pierre who grew up in Bromsgrove and spent childhood days Hick-watching on the boundary at New Road.
Pierre is certainly doing his bit for the game: every year in his home island of Hoedic off the south coast of Britanny, he hosts ‘Le match du siècle de l’année’ (The match of the century of the year), a billing that would have delighted master of the absurd Samuel Beckett, another cricket tragic who came to live in France.
On top of that, he part-owns The Pub, an English-themed tavern close to the Marais in Paris. Take note of the name as he is currently looking to negotiate those periods between World Cup football matches by screening England’s summer Tests as well as county cricket.
If it comes to pass it will mark another small step forward for the game which genuinely feels as if it finally has some roots. The women have already reached the European play-offs for the 2021 T20 World Cup and it is not such a daft thought now to imagine France competing in the not-too-distant future in other World Cups. Should that come to pass, Rex will no doubt be grinning proudly behind the mic.
@Barney Spender 2026
This article first appeared in the June issue of County Cricket Matters
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