Italy bowled over - if slightly baffled - by World Cup cricket success

Italy fielded a side composed of players from countries like Australia, whose Italian grandparents have secured them Italian passports, and Asian migrants in Italy who qualified for the national team thanks to three years’ residency.

The brothers Justin and Anthony Mosca, from Sydney, each scored a half century, and the Sri Lankan-born bowler Crishan Kalugamage, who works as a pizza chef in Italy, was named man of the match after taking three wickets.

Kalugamage is the product of a thriving Italian cricket scene based around the country’s Asian communities, boasting 84 league sides and more than 20,000 regular players.

Hassan, who handles PR for the national side, said the only challenge was that teams struggled to find pitches. “Even the national team does not have its own grass pitch,” he said.

In Lucca, the local team has been playing on an abandoned field for years, said Arshad, 39, a shop owner who has lived in Italy for 15 years.

He said cricket had the potential to rival football in Italy. “When you get to 11 years old in Italy and you are not great at football you risk being left on the bench. Cricket can be the alternative,” he

said.

As an Italian team including migrants now wins games, cricket can also help Italy to edge towards greater integration, he claimed.

“In England a person of colour will be assumed to be English. In Italy, I see that starting to happen now when young kids play football, and cricket could take it further,” he said.

In Monfalcone in northern Italy, which is home to a large Bangladeshi community, the anti-migrant mayor Anna Maria Cisint tried to put a stop to the process by banning cricket in 2024, describing the hard ball as dangerous.

Cricket is no newcomer to Italy, first appearing in Naples in 1793, played by Nelson’s sailors after they landed in the port city.

Danilo Burattini, founder and manager of the Ancona cricket club, said that centuries on, the game is yet to win over the majority of Italians, but the time was ripe. “Admittedly there are lots of rules but it has that sense of fair play and you do not have to be super fit — you can play until your 40s,” he said.

In Palermo, Vincenzo Pintagro, a school PE teacher, fell in love with cricket and has spent the past 15 years trying to convert Sicily, founding a club and tapping into the talent in the local Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan communities.

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“I introduced cricket to 44 schools and even though it started with the Asian communities, more people in Palermo are now playing — the talent is there to be discovered,” Pintagro, 72, said.

The Palermo team suffered the usual problem: nowhere to play. “All we had were nets set up in schools, although this year we might get our hands on an old, disused baseball pitch,” he said.

Asked why cricket appealed to young Sicilians, Pintagro said the answer was simple: “Kids like a sport with a bat.”

He added that cricket fervour in Italy would really take off if the national team can perform well against England on Monday. “We didn’t lose a wicket against Nepal. Never say never,” he said.

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