France vs MCC

First topic message reminder :

MCC will be playing two matches against France – a T20 game on Saturday 16 June and a 50-over contest on Sunday 17 June – at Chateau de Thoiry.

France are currently the Olympic cricket silver medal holders, having lost to none other than England the last time the sport featured in the Olympics – back in 1900 in Paris – although admittedly only two teams took part and all the French players were English.

I look forward to further info or reports from 606v2's own cricketing contingent based in France.

Belgium 56 -5 off 19 Getting a bit interesting....No idea whether Abdul Rehman (dual candidate for entry to hall of famous Belgians and the 606v2 Hall of Fame) has been in yet....

We're basically just slogging. Anything could happen, including us being all out for about 130 I guess.

Belgium 56/5

France 82 - 2 off 10 overs. Only just short of Mike's hope of getting to 85 off 10.....

117 for 6 off 15 overs. Pretty much the end..

Yes, not looking good. Still, had to go for it right?

Mike Selig wrote:Yes, not looking good. Still, had to go for it right?

Definitely.

Looks like Belgium will scrape a win anyway. They now only need 15 more with 3 wkts left.

France need a further 42 but have only 2 wkts left.

Loads of overs left for both.

Remarkably France recover from 130-odd for 8 to scrape a 2 wicket win (Usman Khan making an unbeaten half-century) but it's all in vain anyway as Belgium squeak past Gibraltar by one wicket. Shame but for a great effort in today's chase.

Good recovery by France. In view of Mike's comments about French being slow starters looks like they were not favoured by the draw and having to take on the might of Belgium first.....

Gents, thanks for the kind support shown.

I've been on the phone virtually all afternoon to the squad - first to let them know what their target was (by my calculations, if Gibraltar won by 1 run we needed to chase down in 18.5 overs which was always unlikely) and then to keep up to date with how things were going. Once we lost our 7th wicket we gave up on the chance of that, and concentrated on winning the game, achieved thanks to a quite brilliant partnership between Usman Khan and Tom Liddiard, both players I've had the pleasure to coach, and who have come through our accademy system - others involved in this tournament are Robin Murphy and Zika Ali.

The guys are naturally incredibly disappointed - as I said at the start of the tournament the Belgium game was the crucial one, and again a slow start has cost us. On the whole Belgium deserve their win - they played the more solid cricket throughout; it is pleasing as a neutral to see quite a few of their performers having come through the junior ranks: Jamie Farmiloe was the hero with the bat in their last game and is a good guy, Simon Newport made his mark also, although Nirvam Shah and Rob Sehmi had disappointing tournament they are quality players. Their two young left-armers, Waqas Shaffiq and Shaival Mehta also performed very well. All the best to them in WCL 8.

From our perspective there are plenty of positives: Robin Murhpy has shown he can score runs at this level (I bl00dy well told you so, Robbo!), Arun continues to dominate batting at the European level, and by all accounts Zika Ali bowled absolutely beautifully today without luck. We have a (very) young team, with half the side involved 22 or younger; I was also happy to see Usman Shahid open the batting and score a few today - another player I've coached a bit and I give myself a bit of the credit for identifying his potential with the bat. We now need to go away and have an honest reflection as to why we didn't qualify and what we must do next time - there are some obvious conclusions to be drawn, but a public forum is not the place for me to air my thoughts.

Finally, one of the stalwarts of French cricket, Abdul Rehman Qureshi today anounced his retirement from the 50 over international game at the age of 36. Having carried France's fast bowling for a long time, he has decided that now is the time to let the youngsters have their go - Tom Liddiard and Rory Gribbell (both in Durham's centre of excellence) are the two to watch, and maybe in a couple of years some of our current juniors will join them. I would like to publicly thank Rehman for all he has done - not only as a player but also as a mentor to some of the younger guys, and his devotion to France cricket in general.

Once again thanks for your interest.

Mike Selig wrote:
.... The guys are naturally incredibly disappointed ....

We now need to go away and have an honest reflection as to why we didn't qualify and what we must do next time - there are some obvious conclusions to be drawn, but a public forum is not the place for me to air my thoughts ....

Once again thanks for your interest.

Mike - thanks as well to the Corporal and you for creating our interest through respectively supplying and lighting the fuse.

Whilst your guys are 'naturally incredibly disappointed', they should also feel pride in winning two out of three international matches. It'll be a challenging task for you as a coach to get them to now put those conflicting emotions in perspective and go further.

I fully understand that 'a public forum is not the place ... to air thoughts'. It does though seem clear, as the Corporal has alluded to, that France were playing catch up too often through the tournament. One thing which may have contributed to that and which struck me from merely looking at the scores from distance was how often teams were bowled out before facing their allotment of 50 overs. That's more understandable if a team is batting second and really has to go for it in chasing a hefty target. However, on three occasions the team batting first didn't use up all their overs; those teams were Gibraltar (once) and France (twice). I appreciate I don't know the conditions those matches were played under and quality of the opposition but food for thought perhaps.

Anyway, good luck with what comes next.

guildfordbat wrote:
I fully understand that 'a public forum is not the place ... to air thoughts'. It does though seem clear, as the Corporal has alluded to, that France were playing catch up too often through the tournament. One thing which may have contributed to that and which struck me from merely looking at the scores from distance was how often teams were bowled out before facing their allotment of 50 overs. That's more understandable if a team is batting second and really has to go for it in chasing a hefty target. However, on three occasions the team batting first didn't use up all their overs; those teams were Gibraltar (once) and France (twice). I appreciate I don't know the conditions those matches were played under and quality of the opposition but food for thought perhaps.

Guilford,

I don't think I reveal any secrets by saying that France in particular but associate cricket in general struggle to produce batsmen who can play genuine innings (we talk about 80+ scores) - a lot of cameos, but very few players seem to have the patience and the skill to stay in for long enough to make a genuine impact - in Arun and Usman we have two, and hopefully Robin will prove to be a 3rd, but really that's a minimum.

As to why this is... well there are some obvious (to those of us involved in the game at this level anyway) starters.

Unlucky Mike and France, just thread through the entire thread now and it looks like enthralling cricket. Good to see that there are some competitions in place so that these teams can play each other and improve. An impressive chase by France in their final game, but like has been said they were let down by a slow start with their batting in the first game.

What sort of level are these game played at? Would you say Minor Counties level, or perhaps more like upper level League cricket?

JDizzle wrote:
What sort of level are these game played at? Would you say Minor Counties level, or perhaps more like upper level League cricket?

No quite minor county standard. About middlesex premier from my experience, and a fraction lower than 2nd XI cricket (France's top players are just about good enough to play 2nd XI, and a couple could play first class if given the right environment).

Do any of the French players play, or have played, much in England over the years? Would that sort of thing help these players or is it more about improving the coaching and development in France that they can bring these players through there? Still very impressive the set up that is over there, I had no idea it was that organised and competitive.

I can just about answer that one JD: our young leggie Zika Ali (is it OK to name names here Mike) spent a week with the Kent academy recently, and it seems things went well from both sides (as in Kent liked his attitude and are keen to have him back and Zika seems to have got a lot out of the experience). Zika is of course the one who also had an impromptu coaching session with Richie Benaud recently, so by all accounts is getting some great opportunities.

Also our star bat Arun had a stint in England a few years ago did he not?

Talking of the set up in France - I was interested on another thread to read that Mad's team had won the championship in SW France (north) division.

Not sure what area that would cover but presumably not as far north as the Dordogne? Is that a stronghold of cricket (as it is of UK car number plates) or are most of the Brits there too old to play much?

that's aquite easy to answer corporal: the SW north division basically covers the Aquitaine region (Dordogne, Lot-et-Garonne and Gironde). They are actually only four clubs in our division: Bordeaux-Giscours (my own club, to give them their full name), Eymet, St Aulaye and Angoulême (who technically aren't in Aquitaine at all but don't have any other league to play in). There's also a club at Damazan who don't play in the league. The south division covers the Midi-Pyrenees region, and they're five clubs in the division: Noe-Gascogne, Toulouse, Midi, Armagnac and Catus.

Of course, rather than me going on a long ramble about cricket in the SW of France, there is a pretty good website set up whivh gives you all the relevant information

http://www.cricket-sw-france.org/

Mad - thanks. Really interesting website. Especially this bit...

Whatever your motivation, you need to know that cricket is thriving down here. We've been adding member clubs to our competitions at the rate of one a year of late; and we receive touring sides who are into their 10th, 11th or even 12th consecutive annual visits. This is not just because we are an incredibly friendly bunch (we are!); but also because the region has everything going for it: the Atlantic, wine, the Mediterranean, wine, the Pyrenees, wine, forests, famous foods. And did I mention the wine?

Sounds idyllic