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' (**).
'at' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'last' indicates one should take the final letters.
The final letter of 'long' is 'g'.
'le'+'g'='LEG'
'have' is the link.
(Other definitions for leg that I've seen before include "Poultry portion" , "Gigot" , "Member" , "Lower limb" , "Stage (of race)" .)