Team of pizza-makers and teachers brought together by a passion for the sport hope to win hearts back at home
I
n a basement office in the north of Rome, Riccardo Maggio is unpacking boxes of blue jerseys with “Italia” written on them. He sighs when the landline phone rings again, and then again. Maggio is on his own, multitasking in the headquarters of the Italian Cricket Federation, tucked away in the building that houses the Italian Olympic Committee (Coni), the governing body for national sports.
The room is small and improvised, its shelves cluttered with old trophies, faded photographs of players and souvenir cricket bats. The base for Italian cricket is hardly the nucleus of a global sporting moment. Yet, in a story that has largely flown under the radar in Italy, for the first time in their history the men’s national cricket team have qualified for the T20 World Cup, co-hosted by Sri Lanka and India, which begins this weekend.
“I would call it an Italian miracle,” Maggio said. He should know. Maggio, who is operations manager for the federation and a former national player, was born in Italy to Italian-British parents. He only discovered cricket during summers spent with his grandparents in England. “I watched it on the television, and then started to play it in the park with friends,” he said. “Then I would return to Italy and play football and basketball – those were the sports that were normal here. But I loved cricket.”
