Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Cricket Made History by appearing in Olympics

With the London 2012 Olympics just around the corner, We look in to the first and only time cricket was played in Olympics. This historical event happened in 19-20 August in 1900 at  Vélodrome de Vincennes.
This match was played between host France and Great Britain and it was the only match played in that Olympic as Belgium and Netherlands who were expected to participate withdrew from the event at the beginning of the Olympic games.
Great Britain Team
Specialty of this game was not only it played in Olympic games but match was played as 12 per side by mutual agreement from the captains, not 11 players per side which is the normal case.

The players who were in the teams were not International nor the first class cricketers apart from two players from Britain. The team for Britain was Devon County Wanderers, made up of part-time cricketers from Devon and Somerset.They were on a tour of France at the time and were asked to compete for GB before they set off. They were generally known as Devon and Somerset Wanderers, but on this occasion they competed as Devon County Wanderers.
The French side was officially drawn from all the member clubs of the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques. Few of these clubs actually sported cricket teams, and so the eventual side was selected from just two clubs: the Union Club and the Standard Athletic Club. Both sides had strong English influences, and the majority of the team that competed for France in the Olympic match were British expatriates.
In the Match Great Britain scored 117 in their first innings, and then bowl France out for 78.
Britain then made 145-5 in their second innings before bowling France out for just 26 to claim an emphatic win with just five minutes left to play. C. B. K. Beachcroft(54) and Alfred Bowerman(59) scored half centuries in GB 2nd Innings. Frederick Christian and Montagu Toller took 7 wickets each in first and second innings for GB. 
After the match, the English side were awarded silver medals, and the French side were given Bronze medals, and both teams were also given miniature statues of the Eiffel Tower.
Neither of the teams realised that they had competed in the Olympic Games, with the match advertised as part of the world's fair. The event was retrospectively recognised as an Olympic contest by the International Olympic Committee in 1912, and the medals won by the teams were upgraded to Gold for Great Britain and silver for France. 
Gold Medal
Recent events though have raised the possibility of a return to the Olympics for cricket, probably the Twenty20 format, though this won't happen until, quite appropriately, 2020 at the earliest.

Vélodrome de Vincennes

1 comment:

  1. nice article...hope to see cricket appearing again in Olympics.

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