The Royal Air Force cricket team is a 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...

 side representing the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

. The team played 11 first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 matches: nine between 1922 and 1932, mostly against other branches of the Services, and another two in 1945 and 1946. Their home ground is the Royal Air Force Sports Ground, Uxbridge

Uxbridge

Uxbridge is a large town located in north west London, England and is the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Hillingdon. It forms part of the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is located west-northwest of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres...

.

A number of notable cricketers played for the RAF team in its first-class days. Their side for the first such game, against Rest of England at Eastbourne

The Saffrons

The Saffrons is a multi-purpose sports ground in Eastbourne, East Sussex. The ground is home to Eastbourne Cricket Club, Eastbourne Hockey Club and Eastbourne Town Football Club. There is also an astroturf pitch....

 in September 1922, included no fewer than eight current or future Test cricket

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...

ers: Jack Hobbs

Jack Hobbs

Sir John Berry "Jack" Hobbs was an English professional cricketer who played for Surrey from 1905 to 1934 and for England in 61 Test matches from 1908 to 1930....

, Wally Hardinge

Wally Hardinge

Harold Thomas William "Wally" Hardinge, born 25 February 1886, and died at Cambridge on 8 May 1965, was a cricketer who played for Kent and England. He was also a football international for England.-Cricket career:...

, Frank Woolley

Frank Woolley

Frank Edward Woolley was an English cricketer, one of the finest all-rounders the game has seen. In a career lasting more than thirty years, he scored more first-class runs than anyone but Sir Jack Hobbs, and took over 2,000 wickets at an average of under 20...

, Percy Fender

Percy Fender

Percy George Herbert Fender was an English all-round cricketer who played 13 Tests for England. He was a middle order batsman and bowled mainly leg spin.-Biography:...

, Harold Gilligan

Harold Gilligan

Alfred Herbert Harold Gilligan was a cricketer who played for Sussex and England. Gilligan captained England on their four-Test tour of New Zealand in 1929-30, which England won 1-0...

, George Geary

George Geary

George Geary was easily the greatest cricketer Leicestershire produced before the advent of David Gower and one of the best and hardest-working bowlers of the inter-war period...

, Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker (cricketer)

Charles Warrington Leonard "Charlie" Parker was an English cricketer, who stands as the third highest wicket taker in the history of first-class cricket, behind Wilfred Rhodes and Tich Freeman.-Life and career:Parker took no serious attention to cricket in his childhood, preferring to concentrate...

 and Abe Waddington

Abe Waddington

Abraham "Abe" Waddington, sometimes known as Abram Waddington , was a professional cricketer for Yorkshire, who played in two Test matches for England against Australia in 1920–21. Between 1919 and 1927 Waddington made 255 appearances for Yorkshire, and in all first-class cricket played in 266...

 (though none of them was currently serving in the RAF). However after this festival game, the RAF did not play another first-class match for five years.

Douglas Bader

Douglas Bader

Group Captain Sir Douglas Robert Steuart Bader CBE, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar, FRAeS, DL was a Royal Air Force fighter ace during the Second World War. He was credited with 20 aerial victories, four shared victories, six probables, one shared probable and 11 enemy aircraft damaged.Bader joined the...

's only match of first-class cricket came for the RAF against the Army

British Army cricket team

The Army cricket team is a cricket side representing the British Army. The team played a number of first-class matches between 1912 and 1939, although a combined "Army and Navy" side had played two games against a combined Oxford and Cambridge team in 1910 and 1911...

 at The Oval

The Oval

The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...

 in 1931.

Since the 1940s, the RAF side has continued to compete in minor cricket.

See also

• Royal Navy cricket team
• British Army cricket team
  British Army cricket team
  The Army cricket team is a cricket side representing the British Army. The team played a number of first-class matches between 1912 and 1939, although a combined "Army and Navy" side had played two games against a combined Oxford and Cambridge team in 1910 and 1911...
  
  
• Combined Services cricket team
  Combined Services cricket team
  The Combined Services cricket team represents the British armed forces. The team played at first-class level in England for more than forty years in the mid-twentieth century. Their first first-class match was against Gentlemen of England at Lord's in 1920, while their last was against Oxford...
  
  .

External links

• Scorecard Oracle on CricketArchive
  CricketArchive
  CricketArchive is a website that aims to provide a comprehensive archive of records relating to the sport of cricket. It claims to be the most comprehensive cricket database on the internet, including scorecards for all matches of first-class cricket , List A cricket , Women's Test cricket and...