The applause drifts gently across the ground as bat strikes ball and the figures in whites make their dash for the crease. A boy leans on his bicycle on the edge of the outfield to take in the scene and catch up on the score.

It may sound like any village on a pleasant Sunday afternoon – but this is Kicukiro Oval in French-speaking Rwanda, where eager schoolboys are getting to grips with the unfamiliar English game.

It is the only cricket ground in the country and its rudimentary pitch, where cows usually graze, lies next to the infamous École Technique, where 2,800 Tutsi men, women and children were massacred by marauding Hutus in the genocide of 1994.

“When we first started playing, we found piles of bones on the boundary over there,” said Julius Mbaraga, captain and a founding member of Right Guards, the nation’s first cricket club. One early game was interrupted after an unexploded landmine was discovered at silly mid-on.

This week Rwanda will be welcomed at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Uganda as a full member – only the second, after Mozambique, with no formal links to the British Empire.

Its unlikely inclusion owes much to cricket. Introduced to the country in 2000, the game has rapidly become the most potent symbol of the tiny central African state’s drift away from the French-speaking world and towards Britain. President Kagame, an Anglophone with a deep dislike of France, pursued membership of the Commonwealth to undermine French influence in his country, and his application was endorsed by Tony Blair, whose Government became Rwanda’s biggest donor, contributing £46 million a year. When told of Rwanda’s proposed membership, the former Prime Minister is reported to have said: “Well, they do play cricket don’t they?”

“I think you can say we have batted our way into the Commonwealth,” said Charles Haba, president of the Rwanda Cricket Association, who has persuaded six schools to start playing and has gained affiliate status with the International Cricket Board.

The new-found enthusiasm for cricket chimes with Mr Kagame’s desire that Rwanda, a former Belgian colony that became a close ally of France at independence, should adopt English as the language of choice. Language is an emotive issue because of its association with the genocide. Those responsible for the killings of some one million moderate Hutus and Tutsis were largely French speakers.

Mr Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front rebel movement, which ended the genocide and now forms the bulk of the Government, was primarily English-speaking. It largely consisted of Tutsi refugees, whose parents had fled previous Hutu-led pogroms in the 1950s and 60s and settled in neighbouring English-speaking countries, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

Many of the Tutsi “boys” who grew up in exile learnt to play cricket. When they finally returned home, they brought the game – and the English language – with them.The game is now helping to overcome some of the divisions left by the genocide. The country’s five teams contain Hutus, Tutsis and several Rwandan Asians.

“Good batting, good batting,” comes the cry from the corrugated-iron roof pavilion at Kicukiro. “Tank you bowler, tank you bowler,” yells Bob Bashir, 15, enthusiastically clapping gloved hands as a lanky bowler races in and pitches the next ball wide.

Padded up to await his turn at the wicket, the boy explained that he was a French speaker but that he now preferred to talk in English. “Cricket is an Anglophone game so we must speak English,” he said. “We have to support our boys in English.”

Andre Kayitera, 18, star batsman for the Young Tigers, agreed: “It is because of cricket that I am learning English. Cricket has brought me English. Now I prefer to speak English, though I am still better in French. Not for long though, thanks to cricket.”

President Kagame is only too delighted if playing cricket and joining the Commonwealth ruffle French feathers. Last year he broke off diplomatic relations with Paris over its previous support for the hardline Hutu Government of Juvenal Habyarimana that masterminded the genocide. “There are many benefits for us in joining the Commonwealth, cultural, economic, political,” he told The Times at the time. “I am looking forward to it.”

A few miles from the cricket ground, the once-powerful and imposing French Embassy stands empty, its iron gates chained and padlocked. The nearby Alliance Française is also deserted and though President Sarkozy has made overtures, Rwanda is in no hurry to reestablish ties.

Last week Cricket without Boundaries, a British charity supported by Andrew Flintoff and Gordon Brown, flew in to organise a six-day coaches’ clinic in the country. Its members were impressed by what they found.

“Our sessions were packed and they all so eager to learn,” said Nick Lowles, a volunteer with CWB. “The hope is we can help them develop the game. They are so enthusiastic but they have so little. There is some great talent here, although it is raw talent.”

Family of nations

— The Commonwealth has 53 members on five continents

— Its title was changed from British Commonwealth in 1949 and the rule that limited membership to countries “owing allegiance to the Crown” was dropped

— Ghana was the first majority-ruled African country to join, in 1957 The Commonwealth became far more diverse after 1960, when nations from Africa, the Caribbean, Mediterranean and Pacific joined

— The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group was founded in 1995 to discipline states that violated the organisation’s principles

— It has suspended four countries: Nigeria after the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995, Pakistan and Fiji after the overthrow of elected governments in 1999 and 2000, and Zimbabwe over interference in presidential elections in 2002

— Three countries have resigned: South Africa in 1961 over opposition to apartheid, Pakistan in 1972 over the recognition of Bangladesh's independence and Zimbabwe in 2003, in response to its suspension

— Pakistan, South Africa and Nigeria have since rejoined. Fiji rejoined, but was suspended again last year

Source: Commonwealth Secretariat

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