New Caledonia to host French tour (10 Jul 1999)

9 July 1999

New Caledonia to host French tour

New Caledonia will host the French national team in December this year.

Details are scarce regarding the length of the French visit and the format of matches, but it is understood the matches will be played in the capital, Noumea.

Meanwhile, there are six teams taking part in the first Midi league, they are Cabris, Cabris 'A', Sophia Antipolis, Entrecasteaux, Marseille and Montpellier.

Players have been spread about a little bit to make up some of the teams with Cabris having the nucleus to work from. Monaco decided not to play in the league due to the fact they do not want to play league cricket as they find this too serious for their members.

The players to watch are: Cabris - Phil Martin (capt.) RHB RFM(France) Andy Macmillan (France) RHB RM, Peter Williams SRLB, Graham Kelsey RHB WKT, Phil Bamford RM. Cabris 'A' - Peter Bennet (capt.) RFM, Terry Allen RHB RFM, Nick Thomas RHB.RM; Marseille - Michael Barnes RHB RM, Julian Biggs RHB RM; Montpellier - Sanjeev Rao RHB RM; Entrecasteaux - none - new team so all eyes on them; Sophia Antipolis - Kevin Flynn (capt.) RHB.

Poor weather has restricted the number of completed matches, with only two known to have been played at the time of writing.

The first match, Cabris v Cabris 'A', was a low scoring match with some fine bowling. Notably ,Terry Allen who took three wickets in a single over and Phil Bamford who nearly pulled the game off by taking four wickets in two overs. Thomas however steered the side home with some steady batting. Cabris 80 all out (Lancaster 20; Allen 3-12, Bennett 3-12) Cabris 'A' 81-7 (Thomas 21*; Bamford 4-16)

The second match, Cabris v Marseille, saw some records broken. Highest score on the St. Vallier ground by Cabris and Phil Martin breaking the club record for most number of runs off one over - 30 3-6s and 3-4,s. Cabris bowled their three juniors Gael Evans (French born) 16, Christian Scwarck (Danish) 16 and Craig Taylor 14 (English). Craig bowled 10 straight overs with accuracy.

Cabris 367-4 off 40 overs (Macmillan 156*, Martin 121*; Barnes 2-92) Marseille 165-7 off 40 overs (Dougherty 37; Schwarck 3-48, Evans 2-30),

In the Ile de France region, French cricket's strongest, Paris Universite and Northern led their respective groups at last report.

Ile de France, which comprises the Greater Paris region, contains about half of France's 30 clubs. Players alone would mean more clubs, but lack of access to grounds limits numbers. There is only one usable ground of uncertain quality in the immediate Paris region. Fortunately there are two private clubs with good grounds. This year on the fringes of the region, two more grounds have come into use, both municipal, one exclusively for cricket, the other shared with baseball.

In the northern region there are fthree clubs, Crell C.C., Wimereux C.C. (near Boulougne sur mer) and Chauny C.C.

Crell C.C. is a club consisting of about 20 expatriate Pakistanis players. The club has its own ground.

Wimereux C.C. is a 50% French club. As the town is nestled on the channel coast, most of its matches tend to be against English opposition and does not commit itself to the French championship.

The "Cricket Club Chaunois" is a 100% French club. Cricket has been played since Daniel Beneyt, a teacher of English at the Chauny college undertook to practice cricket during the English courses in order to provide his pupils an opportunity to learn outside of the traditional classrooms. At the end of each school years, pupils were leaving Chauny for a linguistic/cricket tour in England.

Through the years, pupils showed such an enthusiasm for the game that this teacher decided to found a club that is now 17 years old. Travel is still printed in the way of life of this club, but nowadays, since the diary of the national championship and the international fixtures have noticeably been enlarged, with the club much more inclined to travel to England.

The club is now associated with the college where cricket is now played as a cirriculum sport. For this reason, 70% of licensed members are under 16. Seven of them will play in the national Under 19 XI to play in the ECC Colts tournament in Belfast next week.

The club is totally dedicated towards the French. The European Cricket Development Officer, Nigel Laughton, has ensured the club has four Level One diploma coaches who are able to provide proper coaching. In a significant development, the department of Aisne has allowed the club to have its own Aisne Cricket Development Officer since January 1.