“Do they really play cricket there?” is a common question that comes up when certain countries are mentioned in one sentence and cricket in another.
In fact, the list of such countries is long. The International Cricket Council has 12 full members who are eligible to play in official Test matches, while there are 96 associate members.
That’s about half the number of countries that are members of the UN, and leaves plenty of room for the odd response: “They play cricket there, don’t they?” Saudi Arabia is one such country, Thailand is another, as is Greece.
I was met with disbelief last week when I got involved in conversations about the Italian men’s cricket team doing well recently, even as its football team was knocked out of Euro 2024 early on.
From June 9 to 16, the Italian men’s cricket team took part in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Sub Regional Europe Group A 2026 qualifying tournament, in which 10 teams participated. They were unbeaten and defeated Romania in the final by 160 runs. The team will advance to the final stage of the European qualifiers, which will be held in 2025. They are currently ranked 29th in the ICC T20I rankings. Saudi Arabia is in 32nd place.
Italian cricket seems to be on the rise. It wasn’t always that way. It’s been chronicled in two books by Simone Gambino, former president of the Italian Cricket Federation and now its honorary president. He has written a fascinating story, which he has kindly summarised for me in English, and which has inspired much of this article.
It is believed that British traders and sailors introduced cricket to Italian ports in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson even being credited with organising a match in Naples in 1793.
Cricket became popular among the elite in Italy and flourished throughout the 19th century. In September 1893, a group of British emigrants founded the Genoa Cricket and Athletic Club, with football being a secondary concern.
In 1899, another group of emigrants led by Herbert Kilpin from Nottingham founded AC Milan Football and Cricket Club as a reminder of home.
This apparent focus on cricket was soon overshadowed by the rise of football and later by the rise of fascism. Its rejection of all things English, except football, meant that cricket disappeared and was not revived until 1945.
Behind this were cricket-loving staff from embassies and international organisations. When staff were cut in the late 1970s, Gambino became involved in the management of Italian cricket, having developed a passion for the game through his American grandfather living in London.
On 26 November 1980, he founded the Associazione Italiana Cricket. In 1984, the ICC granted association status, with Italy being the first beneficiary. From then until 1987, the Italian national team made four summer tours to London, mostly consisting of homegrown players such as Gambino. Three more summer tours took place between 1990 and 1992, featuring an entirely homegrown Italian youth team.
The Marylebone Cricket Club’s tour of Italy in 1993 raised the profile of Italian cricket. An application for ICC associate member status was then made, which was achieved in July 1995. According to Gambino, “that was the beginning of the end of secrecy”, he uses the term because cricket was not officially recognised.
The Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano had ignored the AIC since 1980, but was preparing a bid to host the 2004 Olympic Games in Rome. Because ICC association status comes with financial support, the value of officially recognising cricket in order to gain an English-speaking vote at the IOC conference suddenly became obvious.
Gambino was summoned by CONI and official recognition took place on February 28, 1997. The AIC was transformed into the current Federazione Cricket Italiana.
Joining associate status unblocked applications from Italian citizens living abroad, mainly from Australia and South Africa, who wanted to represent Italy in cricket. Under the ICC rules at the time, they were ineligible. Only birth in the country and residency counted, not citizenship.
Tensions between the FCI and the ICC over the matter grew, reaching a head in 2001 during the ICC qualifying event for the 2003 Cricket World Cup. The ICC ruled that four Italian nationals were ineligible due to lack of Italian residency.
Gambino withdrew the team from the tournament, officially re-referring the case to the independent sports tribunal in Lausanne. Initially, the ICC accepted, but then tried to refer the arbitration to London. Gambino refused to accept.
He knew the ICC had a much bigger problem. It wanted to join the Olympic committee. That would require adjusting the eligibility rules to include citizenship. The compromise that prevailed was that Italy could withdraw without penalty, and the ICC committed to completely overhauling the eligibility rules, which it did.
Italy, being a catalyst for change, had to take advantage of this. At that time, children of parents from the Indian subcontinent who had migrated to Italy were not allowed to play cricket for the country because they did not have citizenship.
On December 7, 2002, the FCI passed a rule that all minors who wanted to play cricket should be considered Italian citizens. CONI initially opposed the decision, but withdrew after Gambino noted that playing cricket “is a civil freedom, like going to the theater, and in addition, the parents of these young people are taxpayers.” This proved to be a controversial topic.
In the past 20 years, Italy’s men’s and women’s teams have climbed the ICC rankings and the game has spread across the country, exposing the lack of facilities to play in. The current men’s national team is a mix of those of subcontinental origin and those with citizenship by descent.
The addition of several quality players in the second category has changed the results. They include Wayne Madsen, born in South Africa, who played for almost 15 years in the English County Championship, scoring more than 15,000 runs, and Joe Burns, who played 23 times for Australia and is an opening batsman.
There is a fierce battle for World Cup qualification among the ICC Associate Members, with Italy making a bold statement with their current strategy. The question remains whether they can join the ranks of nations renowned for their cricketing achievements.
However, it has a rich, largely unknown, and fascinating history to draw from.