The Gospel from which this claim originated apparently translates as: "He (Jesus) would take the boys to the seashore and, carrying the playing ball and the club, he would go over the waves of the sea as though he was playing on a frozen surface, hitting the playing ball." Read more

I laughed, and turned to Adil Rashid: "Allah's with us, isn't he?"

Rash agreed he was.

Later, at the end of a crazy day, I mentioned that comment in the post-match press conference, because it seemed to sum up the kind of team we had become: a team of different backgrounds, races and religions, a team which derived strength from diversity, and represented the best of our country.

That's right: our country.

I've lived in London longer than in Ireland.

It's my home, and has been for a long time - longer than many realise.

And the fact that I've experienced so many cultures here makes me feel as if England's World Cup winners stand for us all.

Last summer, that feeling mattered as much as ever.

Until the 2016 EU referendum, most of us probably thought life in the UK was pretty harmonious.

Since then, it's become completely divided, which is sad.

But sport, I think, generally gets it right, because it is driven by a common goal.

Most of the time, people are committed to that, and so they have to be honest with each other.

In sport, you can't get away with lies - at least not for long.

It's more important than it's ever been that the national side epitomise the culture we live in.

In that final, Jason Roy (born in South Africa), Ben Stokes (New Zealand), Jofra Archer (Barbados) and I all started life somewhere else.

Rash is Muslim, and so is Moeen Ali, who didn't play at Lord's but was an important part of the squad.

Let's be honest: the England team have never really been made up of 11 white Christians, anyway; these days more people seem comfortable about that.

Attitudes have changed even during my time.

When I first played for England in 2009, I remember being told by someone that, with all the money that goes into the county academies, the cost of producing a home-grown player like Stuart Broad, who has gone through the system, was about £6m - that's the rough figure you reach, in other words, if you divide the money that goes into the academies by the number of England players the system produces.

The implication was that the figure was higher than it would have been had the national side been made up of 11 born-and-bred Englishmen.

For a while, there was a stigma about being born abroad and playing cricket for England, especially when there was an influx of South African guys coming here to make a living.

When I started out, we had Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott, as well as players who were born in South Africa but bred in England, like Andrew Strauss and Matt Prior.

English cricket didn't fully embrace the influx - and that was the biggest mistake it could have made.

That kind of attitude just creates a bigger divide between the players and their public.

I was struck during the World Cup by the different ethnicities who turned up to cheer us on.

I never thought, for example, that we'd have so many England-based Indian fans supporting us but, when you look at the footage from the tournament, you can see how many were wearing England shirts.

It was amazing, and a change for the better. Continue reading

Adil Rashid is one of two Muslims in the team.

The world champions have been praised for the diverse makeup of their squad. Captain Eoin Morgan is Irish born, batsman Ben Stokes is originally from New Zealand, bowler Jofra Archer is of Barbadian heritage, Jason Roy hails from South Africa, while both Rashid and Ali are of Pakistani descent. Read more

He doesn't see himself as a role model for young Muslims but said if he can inspire anyone to follow their dreams and stick to their beliefs then he would be proud of that.

He says Muslim athletes such as All Black Sonny Bill Williams are great because they bring the topic of religion and sport to the forefront.

"He has been fantastic in terms of creating that awareness around religion and sport. Generally relating awareness for all religions."

Patel has played cricket since he was a child and never encountered major issues when practising his faith.

"Everyone is really respectful of what everyone believes in," he says.

But having chosen a sport that takes up the better half of a day, cricket and Islam is a juggling act.

Setting his alarm for prayer at 6am probably won't make him the perfect room-mate on tour.

" You don't really want to disturb your room-mates or disturb their routine, but overall everyone has been really accommodating and understanding," he said.

He prays five times a day, visits the mosque once a week and once a year fasts for an entire month.

Fasting is more of a mental challenge for him than a physical one, but Patel's belief helps him through it and he has never found it alters his on-field performance.

Patel has finished as the highest wicket-taker in New Zealand's Plunkett Shield in the last three seasons and has just been included in the Test squad bound for the UAE to play Pakistan in a three-game series this December.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• crictracker.com
• Image: indianexpress.com

The scandal that has exposed the country's top cricketers cheating tactics has prompted church leaders to offer congregations guidance on forgiveness over the Easter weekend. Read more

The youth and promise of the cricketing star, who was by all accounts an extremely likeable young man, was made much of in the media.

On the night he died, 3News reader Hilary Barry wore black as the bulletin led with the story of his "freak" death.

The next night viewers watched Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke break down several times while making a speech as he struggled time and again to regain composure, at one time to admonishing himself to "do your job" as he attempted to honour the star while announcing that Hughes' one-day international shirt number 64 had been retired.

It was difficult to watch and although it was a public announcement in front of the cameras, the captain's raw pain at the loss of his friend was laid out for all to see, the speech broadcast in its entirety with all the pregnant pauses and halting sobs left in.

One couldn't help but feel it was an intrusion on private grief.

And therein lies the problem with covering tragic deaths, of how far the media should go in the very public ownership of private grief, particularly when it has to report on the reaction of social media, which can make the Fourth Estate's coverage appear muted, dull, and emotionally inadequate.

A fan had posted a photograph of a cricket bat and cap laid next to a doorway as a mark of respect and the visual had gone viral, gathered momentum.

The #putoutyourbats hashtag on Twitter prompted cricketing greats to follow suit instantly, as television coverage faithfully recorded the lineup of bats and caps from around the world.

The tragedy-hysteria bus had left the station and there was some grief to be had.

The story of a cricketing great cut down his prime had caught fire and was gaining oxygen. Continue reading

• Jane Bowron in The Press

Jane Bowron is a columnist and TV reviewer.

Team captain, the Rev. Anthony Currer, presided over the Tuesday evening service at the Venerable English College, the main English seminary in Rome. He said the team wanted to show its closeness to Hughes' family "bringing his life before God and bring it to our prayer".

Four team members, wearing their trademark yellow team blazers over their priestly collars, attended as did the Australian ambassador to the Holy See John McCarthy, an avid cricket fan who eulogised Hughes. Continue reading

The outpouring of grief over the tragic accident that took the talented life of cricketer Phillip Hughes went global within a very short time.

The home of cricket - England - was profuse in the time devoted to this sad event.

While he was in hospital, Phillip Hughes was part of hourly bulletins on the BBC.

On the day Hughes was declared dead, the BBC gave a full quarter hour of coverage from England and Australia involving players, administrators, medical doctors, sports physicians and engineers who design helmets.

And all in prime time.

The tragic accident and its sorrowful unfolding has flooded the Australian media and will remain so till his funeral.

As one who has more than my fare share to do with death and grief, I know the exquisite pain and numbing sense of loss suffered by those people pole axed by its occurring.

There's nothing to compare with the shock and dismay that comes with the unexpected death of someone full of promise.

But the intrusion into the intimacy of the experience by the world's media and the reaction that it provokes in communities often only held together by the media they share has been on a scale not seen since the death of Princess Diana.

Even Elton John got in on the act to dedicate a song to Hughes.

Meanwhile and at the same time, an Israeli umpire gets hit on the head in a freak accident while doing his job and it is barely reported.

And the catalogue of the world's atrocity stories are readily available but hardly get noticed.

What's going on here? Yes some of it comes down to a world - Australia - where you dare not mention the "D" word - death.

It's where we are all headed but never the subject of any conversation and little thought or reflection.

Especially among young athletes, the prospect of physical failure cannot be countenanced and the sheer lack of familiarity with death in the sanitized, fitness and success focused world of professional sport means that any accommodation of its reality is something that is put in the "too hard" basket indefinitely.

But there's something else.

Recently a senior figure in the Australian Rugby Union who played for the Wallabies when it was an amateur sport gave his account of why the Wallabies are doing so badly.

It's not that they haven't got the talent or they're demoralized or they aren't fit enough or have too many among them on the injury list.

My friend reckons it's because they're paid too much.

They're paid so much and on such long contracts that they have to look after themselves or have their working life shortened. So, says my pal, they won't have a go.

Whether that's the explanation or something else is at the heart of the Wallabies' woes is not my point.

What the allegation points to is the hermetically sealed world professional athletes live in and it's all focused on what Miss Piggy once neatly summarized: "moi" (me).

So, when reality breaks and death intrudes, worlds shatter.

But not just the world of those intimately involved with the deceased, as it does for all those who lose someone close and loved.

A global community that is tied up with supporting that hermetically sealed world of professional sports breaks open.

People who had never met the deceased somehow feel a sense of tragic loss well beyond the sadness we should all feel at someone else's misfortune.

Prime Ministers eulogize, commentators offer opinions, individuals put out bats and flowers.

What's it saying about us? As a regular celebrant of funerals, I never tire of saying to a grieving family that the ceremony isn't for the deceased.

Sadly, they're gone. It's for the living, the ones left behind.

What does the outpouring over Phillip Hughes say about the culture he's left behind?

As I said, Australia is becoming a stranger and stranger place to me.

• Michael Kelly S.J. in Pearls and Irritations

Michael Kelly is an Australian Jesuit Priest, now based in Bangkok.

The Anglicans beat the catholics answering the Catholics' score of 106 with just five balls remaing.

The Vatican scored 106 runs to which the Anglican XI replied with 108 runs with just five balls remaining

Before setting out for England the St Peter's Cricket team was

The Pope also a bat for the team. Continue reading

The challenge was launched at the baptism of the St. Peter's Cricket Club.

Vatican officials said the league will be composed of teams of priests and seminarians from Catholic colleges and seminaries in Rome.

The seminaries and religious colleges will play each other in a "Twenty20" tournament, where games last about three hours.

After that, the best players will form a Vatican team, which will be called the "Vatican XI," and challenge the Church of England to form its own team of Anglican priests and seminarians to play in London at Lord's, the home of cricket. Continue reading

Walsh, a powerful right-hand batsman, was playing his last game for St Pat's Silverstream when he scored 225 - out of a total of 369 - from 245 balls in the traditional fixture against St Bede's College in Christchurch.

Walsh's mammoth effort, which included seven sixes and 24 fours, took Silverstream from a precarious position to one of dominance.

It included a 186-run eighth-wicket partnership with Gareth Hitchman, with Hitchman's contribution 36.