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An Incredible Match of Cricket

Hello to all the lovers of fantasy cricket! Are you playing your favourite fantasy sports at your free time? We hope you are!  

It is said as much as it fun to watch any cricket match, it is also the same fun to play fantasy cricket and to know about different historical tales about the sport. So are you up to listen a tale dated back to 1900 and linked to Olympics?

Read on then: 

Being an ardent fan of cricket, which we are sure you are, you may know that cricket is not considered as an athletic sport. Olympic motto is ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’. But cricket do not cut this deal of Olympics and hence there is a huge debate about the inclusion of cricket. 

But in 1900, a cricket tournament was played as part of the 1900 Summer Olympics. The match took place on 19–20 August at the Vélodrome de Vincennes. The only match of the tournament was played between teams France and Great Britain., Great Britain won the match by 158 runs. 

In the 1896 Summer Olympics, cricket had been scheduled as an event at the first modern Olympics. Cricket was being listed in the original programme for the Athens Games then. The event got cancelled due to an insufficient number of entries.  

Again four years later, at the Paris Games, there was also a shortage of entries. Belgium and the Netherlands, who for a time had been regarded as possibilities to co-host the Olympics with France, opted out from the cricket tournament when their co-hosting bids fell through.  

The somewhat random nature of the cricket tournament was mirrored all through the rest of the 1900 Olympics. Events took place all the way through a six-month period from May through until October. 

Taking part in Olympics

Initially, cricket teams representing Belgium, France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands were scheduled to compete in that tournament of Olympics. Belgium and the Netherlands pulled out of the tournament, leaving Great Britain to play with France. Neither France nor Great Britain was nationally selected. The cricket team of Great Britain was a touring club, the Devon and Somerset Wanderers also known as Devon County Wanderers, while the French cricket team, the French Athletic Club Union, included mainly British emigrants living in Paris. 

The match was of two-day, which began on 19th August 1900. The team of Great Britain batted first and scored 117, and bowled France out for 78. In their second innings, Great Britain then scored 145 for 5, giving the hosts a target of 185. The tourists bowled out France at 26 runs to win the match by 158 runs, a noteworthy margin. Interestingly, it was only five minutes of the match remaining, when the Great Britain won the match.  

The Great Britain cricket team was awarded silver medals and the French team bronze medals, jointly with miniature statues of the Eiffel Tower. The match was officially recognised as being an Olympic contest in 1912, and the medals were later reassigned as gold and silver. 

Isn’t this an interesting tale to know? 

Happy reading and enjoy your fantasy games!