Kolkata: For several decades, Italy hasn’t just played football, it has defined the sport. From sun-bleached piazzas to roaring cathedrals and the Amalfi coast to the streets of Milan and Turin, football has been woven into Italy’s national identity as tightly as art, food and history.
Against that backdrop, the idea of Italy playing a cricket World Cup is pretty inconceivable. And yet, here they are, eager to leave a mark in their first splash in the T20 World Cup.
Not one member of the squad was born in Italy, nor do they have a proper turf wicket. Even now, cricket is a pretty confusing game for most Italians, a visiting journalist picking baseball, croquet and polo as the sports most commonly mistaken as cricket. Needless to say, Italians don’t even have an inkling that cricket has five-day and 50-over formats too.
“Till the 1987 World Cup, we used to think that the bowlers and batters were on the same side playing against the fielders because they were all in whites,” said Simone Gambino, former president of the Italian cricket federation, who is travelling with the team. “Only from the 1992 World Cup did we understand that there were a set of defenders (bowlers and fielders) and attackers (batters) because of the coloured clothing.”
One can’t blame them. There are no packed San Siro equivalents for the game, no childhood myths passed down about legendary centuries or impossible catches. For years, cricket existed as a holiday pastime in municipal grounds, makeshift pitches, corners of parks, mainly sustained by immigrants. Most players were selected based on their applications from abroad, helping the team come through second in the Europe qualifiers.
Gazetta dello Sport, Italy’s premier sports daily, has been running online tutorials on cricket and its laws. However, the sport is not exactly alien to Italians. When AC Milan was founded, it was called Milan Football and Cricket Club. Genoa is still a cricket and football Club. Christian Vieri, the Italy striker in the late 1990s and early 2000s, used to bat left-handed and idolise Allan Border since he grew up in Sydney till he was 14.
Coached by John Davison of Canada and Kevin O’Brien of Ireland, this Italy team is basically a mix of professionals and amateurs. Skipper Wayne Lee Madsen, 42, played hockey for South Africa in the World Cup and at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games before moving to the UK to lead Derbyshire in county cricket. Grant Stewart, born in Australia, plays for Kent. Jon-Jon Smuts is a South African-capped player who qualified for an Italian passport through marriage and is expected to step into the shoes of Joe Burns, who led Italy in the qualification but is not in the squad after an alleged fallout.
Off-spinner Ben Manenti and his younger brother Harry – he will miss out due to injury – were born in Australia and play for Sydney Sixers and Adelaide Strikers respectively in the Big Bash League. Marcus Campopiano is at Surrey as assistant strength and conditioning coach. Sri Lankan-origin Crishan Kalugamage is a pizza maker at Lucca, 350km from Rome, and Phagwara-born fast bowler Jaspreet Singh drives a cab in England. One can’t expect wonders from Italy, largely because of their relative inexperience. However, the advantage of playing in different T20 leagues still counts.
“We bring that balanced mix of Australian descent, South African descent, a lot of South Asian descent as well. So, for us, and the experience I can bring from playing a lot of cricket around the world, but also playing in a previous World Cup, is sort of dealing with the pressures that come with it. The expectations, the external expectations,” said Madsen.
“And that’s something that we’ve tried to communicate. Dave (coach) and I have done quite a lot of work with the team, getting a psychologist involved to help with that side of things as well, with preparing for getting into big moment games and how we deal with that sort of external pressure. And keeping the focus on what we can control as players.”
Given the diversity, there has been an attempt to develop an Italian identity as well, mainly through the language. It’s not been easy. “My Italian’s not good at all,” said Davison, who had hammered a record 67-ball 100 for Canada against West Indies in the 2003 World Cup. “But there’s other guys who are developing it, and they see, particularly for the players who want to play long-term and really build the Italian culture, they’re making an effort. Grant Stewart, for example, has a tutor who’s teaching him the language.”
Italy’s journey from Rome to Kolkata isn’t a fluke. Everything about this bunch culminates into a belief that playing a cricket World Cup isn’t just a sporting milestone for Italy, it’s a cultural shift. Italy’s presence in a cricket World Cup challenges long-held assumptions about who belongs where in global sport. Right now the nation is represented by players with roots spanning continents, but who knows what could come out of this attempt to forge a national identity.
Win or lose, it is bound to reshape cricket’s narrative in that country. An improbable upset win will surely get more attention, even in the middle of the Winter Olympics.
