The Wall Street Journal looks at the growth of cricket in an unlikely country: France.

Children across the country are slowly taking up the sport thanks to a government pilot project aiming to introduce the sport to around 200 schools over the next eight years.

According to figures released by the International Cricket Council, there are just 69 cricket clubs in France. Trivial compared to the 5,000 in England and Wales, but half of those playing the game in the nation of football and rugby are French, rather than expatriates or the children of immigrants from traditional cricketing countries such as Australia and England, and that number is growing.

The Crusaders, an Australian team comprising former Test, first-class and league players, will travel to France to play a match just outside Paris on June 27 in their 42-day tour of Europe.

The highlights of their tour will be matches against a President's Italian cricket X1, Switzerland, Duke of Norfolk's X1 and the MCC at the Lord's Nursery Ground.

The Australian's will spend a whole week in France visiting the Burgundy vinyards of the Cote d'Or, explore Paris and the Palace of Versailles and admire the beauty of Monet's gardens at Giverny.

The Crusaders will play a match against Standard Athletic Club 24th June (2pm) at Meudon. From Paris they will travel to the Somme battlefields of northern France and the adopted Australian village of Villers Bretonneux. Then south to the Loire Valley and Chateau Chenonceau and Chateau Villandry and the highlight of the tour - the match against l'Equipe de France de Cricket.

Full story at This French Life.