Bruce Nicholas French is a former English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er, who played in sixteen Tests

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 and thirteen ODIs for England from 1985 to 1988. A wicket-keeper

Wicket-keeper

The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being guarded by the batsman currently on strike...

/batsman

Batting (cricket)

In the sport of cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball with a cricket bat to score runs or prevent the loss of one's wicket. A player who is currently batting is denoted as a batsman, while the act of hitting the ball is called a shot or stroke...

, French played his first Test against India at Headingley

Headingley Stadium

Headingley Stadium is a sporting complex in the Leeds suburb of Headingley in West Yorkshire, England. It is the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, rugby league team Leeds Rhinos and rugby union team Leeds Carnegie ....

, Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

 in 1986, and his last Test against New Zealand

New Zealand cricket team

The New Zealand cricket team, nicknamed the Black Caps, are the national cricket team representing New Zealand. They played their first in 1930 against England in Christchurch, New Zealand, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. It took the team until 1955–56 to win a Test, against the...

 in Wellington

Wellington

Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

 in March 1988.

French played his county cricket

County cricket

County cricket is the highest level of domestic cricket in England and Wales. For the 2010 season, see 2010 English cricket season.-First-class counties:...

 exclusively for Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club

Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Nottinghamshire, and the current county champions. Its limited overs team is called the Nottinghamshire Outlaws...

. Cricket writer, Colin Bateman, described French as "a wicketkeeper of the highest calibre".

Life and career

French served as understudy to Paul Downton

Paul Downton

Paul Downton is a former English cricketer, who played in thirty Tests and twenty eight ODIs from 1977 to 1989. He was a wicket-keeper and a useful batsman in the lower middle-order...

 on two tours, before making his Test debut in 1986. He had a run in the side until a finger injury gave Jack Russell his opportunity behind the stumps.

French's best performance with the bat at Test level, came against Pakistan in the 1987 Test at Old Trafford, when he scored 59 in a rain-affected drawn match.

In his sixteen Test matches, French scored 309 runs at an average of 18.11, took thirty eight catches and made one stumping.

French had a mixed experience on his tours. These included being bitten by a dog, being hit by a spectator thrown ball whilst practising, and then knocked down by a car as he arrived at hospital for treatment. French also saved two young girls from drowning while on a Test tour in Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, when he came across them by chance.

After his Test playing days were over, French joined the 1990 rebel tour

South African rebel tours

The South African rebel tours were a series of seven cricket tours staged between 1982 and 1990. They were known as the rebel tours because South Africa was throughout this period banned from international cricket due to the apartheid regime...

 to South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

.

French enjoys mountaineering

Mountaineering

Mountaineering or mountain climbing is the sport, hobby or profession of hiking, skiing, and climbing mountains. While mountaineering began as attempts to reach the highest point of unclimbed mountains it has branched into specialisations that address different aspects of the mountain and consists...

, and had a spell coaching wicket-keeping for the England cricket team.