The French, at long last, have a cricket side! (3)
I believe the answer is:
leg
'a cricket side' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'the french at long last' is the wordplay.
'the french' becomes 'le' ('the' in French).
'at' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'last' says to take the final letters.
The final letter of 'long' is 'g'.
'le'+'g'='LEG'
'have' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for leg that I've seen before include "Poultry portion" , "Gigot" , "Member" , "Lower limb" , "Stage (of race)" .)