The Vatican cricket team with Pope Francis

London, Sept. 10: Pope Francis is normally a kindly man but the 77-year-old pontiff was sterner than Ravi Shastri when he met members of a Vatican cricket team before they set off for a five-match tour of England.

“No sledging,” he apparently urged the cricketers who belong to the side known formally as St. Peter’s Cricket Club.

It is known the Pope will be most disappointed if the stump microphones pick up stuff like “I’ll see you in hell!” or “That was a very un-Christian stroke!” which is the accusation once memorably flung against Prince Ranji by an Englishman when the Indian introduced the leg glance into the game.

What is noteworthy about the boys from Rome is they include eight Indians, two Sri Lankans and one Pakistani. Father Tony Currer, 41, a batsman, is the only Englishman in the side — naturally he is the captain.

The skipper, who works for the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said: “Hopefully nothing will be picked up by the stump microphones but when you play you play to win. Normally I’m trying to agree with the Anglicans, not beat them. If one of the boys gets hit in the face by a ball, it could set back ecumenical relations by decades!”

His side has no fewer than three “demon” fast bowlers — Jomcy Mathew, Davidson Jestus and Benedict.

The batsmen are Antony Shehan (vice-captain); Shynish Bosco; Deepak Anto; Ruwan Tharaka, who is left-handed (even though sinistra, Latin for left-handed, came to mean evil, sinister); and Paulson. Ajeesh George is a medium pacer, while Aamir Bhatti is the wicketkeeper batsman.

Most of the players, who are students from Rome’s pontifical colleges and seminaries, are aged between 21 and 24.

An older member of the side, Jery Njaliath, 36, a priest from Kerala, said: “We’re going over there to beat them, to play to the maximum. But we’ll certainly play in the spirit of the game. I don’t think there’ll be any sledging. When we are on tour we’re representing Pope Francis and I don’t think he would approve of that.”

The “Light of Faith” tour, as it is called, is intended to improve interfaith dialogue and raise funds for Global Freedom Network, which fights against modern slavery and human trafficking. The Pope has given his blessings to the Vatican side plus a signed bat which will be auctioned at the end of the tour.

The “grudge match” will be a Twenty20 in Canterbury on September 19 between the Vatican and the Church of England.

The on-field umpires’ decisions will be final with no referrals to the great umpire in the sky. Nor will the vanquished captain be required to wear sackcloth after the game in the manner of King Henry II after his dispatch of Thomas Beckett in Canterbury.

This will be preceded by matches against the Chaplains of Armed Forces, Aldershot, on September 13; against a local side at Preston Park, Brighton, on September 14; against the Authors XI, Ascott House, on September 15; and against the Royal Household, Windsor Castle, on September 17 when there will be no admission for the general public, alas, “due to security reasons”.

In fact, it will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for snappers to get into the ground in the hope of papping members of the Royal Family — the Queen, after all, is “Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England”, which is almost as powerful as being BCCI chairman.

The Vatican side consider themselves to be “underdogs”, but according to the UK’s Church Times, which has had a hand in the organisation of the tour, “the Vatican team, it must be admitted, has the edge. For one thing, they have been able to draw on the international students studying in Rome — hence the preponderance of players from the Indian subcontinent.”

“The C of E side has the home advantage, of course, but only if the number of Anglicans in the crowd outnumbers the Roman Catholics — although some sort of ecclesiastical Tebbit test might be applicable….” the paper added.

There was a generous message posted by David Gower, the former England captain: “It’s fantastic — almost in the fullest sense! — that St. Peter’s Cricket team is here in England and playing in my old school town, Canterbury.… All best wishes, in the Christian spirit, to both sides.”

Father Theodore Mascarenhas, an Indian official at the Vatican’s Council for Culture, once an off-spin bowler himself, has high hopes for the series: “We hope to have ecumenical dialogue through cricket.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, met the Vatican cricketers during a visit to Rome earlier this year.

“This is the first cricket match between the two since the Reformation,” he declared. “There will be no intervention on the other side. We all know God is English.”