How to Play French Cricket
The Game That Isn't French at All

How to play

Setting up

There is almost nothing to set up, which is half the charm. One player takes the bat and stands in an open space with a little room on all sides. Everyone else spreads out in a loose ring around them, a few paces back. There are no stumps, no crease and no pitch to mark out: the batter's legs, from the knee down, are the wicket. A soft ball is essential. A tennis ball is the classic choice, and a tennis racket stands in perfectly well for a bat if that is what the car boot offers.

The turn, such as it is

French cricket has no overs, no innings breaks and no waiting for your go. Play runs like this:

1. A bowler bowls underarm at the batter's legs. The first bowl traditionally comes from a friendly distance, five or six paces.
2. The batter defends. If they hit the ball, anywhere, off any part of the bat, they have earned the right to turn and face wherever the next delivery comes from.
3. Whoever fields the ball becomes the next bowler, and they bowl from the exact spot where the ball stopped or was picked up. No walking it closer. If it rolled to the batter's heels, hard luck for the batter.
4. If the batter swung and missed, or let the ball pass, their feet are frozen where they stand. They may not shuffle, pivot on a heel or hop. If the next ball comes from behind them, they must twist their upper body round to play it, feet planted, which is exactly as wobbly and entertaining as it sounds.

Getting out, and what happens next

There are two ways out, and only two:

1. Leg before. The ball strikes the batter's legs below the knee, on the full or after a bounce. The bowler takes the bat.
2. Caught. Any fielder catches a hit before it touches the ground. The catcher takes the bat.

That instant handover is the engine of the game. There is no queue and no sulking on the boundary: catch the ball and you are batting within five seconds. Scoring is optional. Most families simply play for the longest stay at the bat, though you can count one run per hit if a competitive streak demands numbers.

The rulings families actually argue about

• Above the knee doesn't count. A ball that thuds into the thigh stings, but it is not out. Below the knee only.
• Hands and bat are not legs. A ball that hits the gloved hand or the bat handle is not leg before.
• The frozen batter who "just adjusted". Standard family ruling: moving your feet when frozen is out, but the first offence gets a warning, because everybody does it once.
• One hand, one bounce. The great coastal variant, beloved on beaches where full catches are scarce: a catch taken one-handed after a single bounce also counts as out. Agree before the first ball whether you are playing it, and stick to it.
• Bowling from your toes. If the ball stops touching the batter's foot, the bowler may bowl from point-blank range. This is legal, traditional, and the source of the game's biggest squeals. Soft ball, remember.

A short history of a game with a misleading name

Here is the honest truth about French cricket: nobody can show you anything French about it. Despite the name, the game has no documented French origin at all, and we are not going to invent one. What it is, beyond doubt, is a British garden and beach improvisation of long standing, the kind of folk game passed from one summer holiday to the next for generations without anyone writing the rules down, because everyone's uncle already knew them.

Its genius is compression. Proper cricket needs eleven a side, a mown strip and an afternoon. French cricket is cricket shrunk to fit a family: the bat, the ball, the catching, the appealing, the theatrical despair, all of it packed into a circle of grass and twenty minutes before tea. That is why it has lasted.

What it builds

For a game this simple, French cricket works remarkably hard. Because the fielders are also the bowlers, and any of them might be batting in ten seconds, everyone is practising catching, throwing and underarm bowling at once. There is no deep fine leg daydreaming about lunch: the whole circle is always in the game, which is precisely what young children need from a group game and so rarely get.

The freeze rule is quietly clever too. A batter twisting on planted feet to reach a ball behind them is doing real balance and core control work, the rotational kind that climbing frames don't offer. And the instant rotation, where the catcher immediately becomes the batter, keeps tears short: being out is never a long exile, just a brief pause before your next chance. That fast, low-stakes cycle of losing and recovering is some of the best practice childhood offers, the sort of self-regulation researchers consistently link to the games children play together outdoors. For more on why these old garden games earn their keep, see our guides to garden games for families and why real play matters.

Playing with under-5s

Four is a fair starting age for the real rules, but the game bends beautifully for smaller players. The adaptations that work:

• Bigger, softer ball. A large foam or beach ball is easier to hit, easier to catch and impossible to fear.
• Bowl from closer. Two or three gentle paces, always underarm, always slow.
• Drop the freeze rule. Twisting on frozen feet defeats most under-5s entirely. Let them turn freely and add the freeze back around six or seven.
• Bat in pairs. An adult-and-child batting pair, four hands on one bat, gives a small child the thrill of a proper hit and an adult the excuse to ham up every appeal.

Should you let them win? Let them hit, certainly: serve up easy balls and celebrate the contact. But when they are genuinely caught out, they are out, because the next bat is only ever one catch away, and learning that is the whole point.

The kit

All you truly need is a bat with a bit of spring in it and a ball soft enough to be bowled at someone's shins with a clear conscience. A proper wooden bat, sized for small hands and smooth under the grip, turns a borrowed-racket improvisation into a game the family asks for by name. You will find ours among the Jaques outdoor games collection, made by the world's oldest games company, est. 1795.

Common questions

Is one hand, one bounce a real rule?

It is a genuine and widely played variant rather than part of the core game, most common on beaches and hard ground where clean catches are rare. Agree it before you start. Once agreed, a one-handed catch after exactly one bounce dismisses the batter just like a full catch.

Can the batter move their feet at all?

Only after a hit. A hit earns the batter the right to turn and set their feet to face the new bowler. After a miss or a leave, the feet stay exactly where they are until the batter next makes contact with the ball.

What age can children play French cricket?

From about four with the adaptations above: a bigger ball, closer bowling, no freeze rule and paired batting. Most children manage the full rules somewhere around six or seven, and the game stays genuinely fun for adults, which is why it survives every family holiday.

Where does the bowler bowl from?

From wherever the ball stopped or was fielded, with no creeping forward. That single rule does most of the game's balancing: a big hit buys the batter distance and time, a feeble prod invites the next ball from uncomfortably close range.