The Vatican is forming its own cricket team.
The team, to be called St Peter's Cricket Club, will recruit players from the 300 priests and seminarians from cricket-playing countries such as England, Australia, South Africa, India and Pakistan who live and study in Rome.
Officials are setting their sights high: they have already challenged the Church of England First XI to a match at Lord's next northern summer.
At a press conference to announce the team, cucumber sandwiches, a cricketing tea staple, were served with a pot of tea as bewildered Italian reporters inspected a bat and ball.
"We hope that some day we will have to translate silly mid-on into Italian, or maybe Latin," said Father Theodore Mascarenhas, an Indian priest and off-spin bowler who is the chairman of the club.
