Spinner Ben Manenti, a key architect of Italy’s maiden T20 World Cup win over Nepal on Thursday, credited the influence of the late Shane Warne on his career while growing up in Australia.
Having spent a lot of time playing domestic cricket Down Under, the 28-year-old Manenti returned a splendid 4-0-9-2 as Italy bowled out Nepal for a mere 123 en route to their 10-wicket victory here at the Wankhede Stadium.
“Obviously, growing up in Australia (and) watching Shane Warne bowl, he was a hero for all spinners. He was probably a big influence on my career and I got a lot of coaches back home that have helped me out as well,” Manenti told the media here after Italy’s historic win.
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Manenti, along with Crishan Kalugamage (3/18) and JJ Smuts (1/22), strangulated the Nepal batters who just could not come up with a counter-attack to their testing line and lengths.
“I’ve played a lot of T20 cricket now. I’ve bowled the first over a lot of times. There’s a job I’m used to, a job I’ve done before, so I wasn’t I wasn’t too nervous, but it’s nice to get the team off to a good start,” he said.
“We watched the England West Indies game last night and we saw it was spinning a little bit. So once we knew we were on the same wicket, we sort of came up with a bit of a plan on how to bowl, and it was nice to work in tandem with them today.”Â
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“I think we got six wickets between us today, so it’s always nice when the wicket does spin in T20 cricket. You don’t often get it. when you do, it’s nice,” he added.
Manenti said there will be strong reactions back home in Italy after the national team’s first-ever win in the competition.
“We’ve had a big six to eight months. There’s a lot of attention on us. There’s a lot of eyes, a lot of ears, watching us and listening to us. It’s great for the growth of the game back home in Italy,” he said.
Talking about playing in front of a partisan crowd which was completely in the corner of Nepal, Manenti said having changed their attitude it was something the Italians could easily deal with.
“We changed our attitude a little bit to enjoying the occasion as opposed to trying to get overawed by it. We did that today. We loved the Nepalese fans. It was awesome. A lot of our boys haven’t played in stadiums and played in front of crowds before, so for them, it was an amazing experience,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nepal’s Aarif Sheikh declined his side was bogged down under the weight of expectations after their brave show against England at the same venue last Sunday.
“Our fans came here to support us, and that was the best part of us. We were playing our own natural game, but we know (that) in the middle part of the game we lost,” he said.
Aarif rued losing a few wickets in the middle stages which rocked the ship for Nepal.
“We played better cricket in the last game with England. But today, we were not up to the mark in the batting, especially in the powerplay,” he said.
“We were not up to the mark. We lost two-three wickets in the middle overs. We collapsed in the middle part of the game, and we couldn’t come back. It was 180 wicket, but we weren’t able to score that,” he said.
