You rarely read or hear about Canada in cricketing circles yet it has a popular cricket tradition which is growing all the time. Canada reports a cricketing history than goes back over 200 years and recorded its first international cricketing event in 1844 when it played the USA in New York. It is now working hard to establish itself in international circles so that some of its 12,000 players can start competing with the bigger cricketing nations. Canada has almost 300 cricket clubs and includes a Ladies cricket association which started in 1994.
In the centre of Singapore you may be surprised to come across a very prominent cricket ground. In fact the famous cricket ground here sits in a very central place, nestled in amongst some extremely high skyscrapers. It has been able to retain that location due the cricket pitch now being a prominent part of the city’s identity.
Towering 280 metres over the cricket ground is the UOB Plaza Tower, which was once the tallest skyscraper in the world outside North America when it was built in 1986. Interestingly it shares the title of the highest building in Singapore with other buildings of the same height as that is the limit allowed by the airport authorities there.
France is another country where you might not expect to find cricketing traditions but you would be mistaken. A cricket club was set up in Cannes in 1887 but struggled to survive, primarily due to the outbreak of war in 1914. A further seventy years past by before the Monet Carlo Cricket Club started in 1989 and year later the Cabris cricket club formed. One of the youngest cricket clubs in France also has an amazing ground. The pitch of the Entrecasteaux Cricket Club in Provence sits in a green valley overlooked by the woods opposite and the 16th Century buildings of the ancient town. The club provided a training location for a French national junior team prior to European competitions in 2009.
The British armed forces are primarily responsible for bringing cricket to the Greek island of Corfu in the early nineteenth century.
The British left the island in 1864 yet the seed of cricket had already started germinating and two cricket clubs remained with local players. In the early 1900’s cricket boomed on the island with an annual cricket festival attracting many visiting teams, particularly from naval ships in the British Fleet. After the Second World War Corfu’s reputation as a holiday island grew and many British teams included the island on their foreign tours, which took them to the island to enjoy its milder off-season weather. In return the local teams on Corfu also repaid visits by coming to England to play. Cricket is still very popular on Corfu with several teams contesting over 100 games every year. The original cricket ground in Corfu Town, which stills exists on the Esplanade opposite the Liston building, is rather small in size now due to new car parking requirements for the town. To make up for that a new, larger, ground has recently been opened at the Kontokali Marina further north along the coast. There are many foreigners who decided to settle on Corfu, but the cricket association will only allow non-nationals to play in its team once they have been resident on the island for more than four years.