NEP vs ITA Live Cricket Score, Nepal vs Italy T20 World Cup 2026 Match Today

Single off the fourth ball of the 13th and there it is! Anthony Mosca finishes on 62 off 32, Justin Mosca on 60 off 44. They have made this chase look like child's play. Italy have romped to their first ever win in the T20 World Cup. What a moment this is for them.

It was quite the brotherly show for Italy, with Crishan Kaligamage in between and he wins the player of the match award as well for his 3/18. Ben Manenti backed up his brother Harry's decision at the toss to bowl first by choking out the Nepalese batters early on. He finished with astonishing figures of 2/8 in four overs. And then, it was the Mosca show.

They need just 56 runs to win off 84 balls now.

Well, this was supposed to be Nepal's party but the Italians are gatecrashing it. Nepal turn to their main man Sandeep Lamichhane for the last over of the powerplay. Anthony Mosca unable to get anything off the first three balls and then he muscles the fourth over long on for a six. The fifth is dragged past short fine leg for four. Mosca is beaten on the inside edge last ball, wicketkeeper Aasif Sheikh knocks off the bails but the batter was well inside his crease.

Anthony Mosca on 30 off 15 balls at the end of the over, Justin Mosca on 37 off 21.

Signs of Nepal breaking free at last. Ali Hasan continued for the fourth over after JJ Smuts gave just two in the third. Aasif Sheikh tried to smash the second ball to the boundary, it cleared mid-on but was stopped before it reached the ropes and so just two from it. Hasan then bowled a yorker on the stumps, Aasif somehow jammed it past fine leg for four. The next ball was flicked off the pads for four more. Two singles off the last two balls.

Aasif on 14 off 11, Paudel on three off three.

Nepal 23/1 in 4 overs

Harry Manenti: We’ll bowl today. There were some nerves there, of course, like any game of international cricket. I think it just didn’t work out for us on the day. A few things clearly went the wrong way for us. Losing our skipper, Wayne Madsen, was probably a turning point, and then we didn’t manage to get back that momentum in a crucial period of the game. Scotland are a good side, and today we take on another good side in Nepal, so we’re really looking forward to it. He’s played a lot of cricket for Italy, and I’m really looking forward to watching him. We’ll also make another change. Our focus point has been bravery the whole time. We’re playing against teams who are well above us in the world rankings, and from the outside looking in, we’re the outsiders. But within our squad, we believe strongly in our abilities. We’re trying to be brave, take the game on, and hopefully we’ll see that today. We’ve moved on slightly from then, and Italy cricket has moved on a long way since that stage. It’s pretty exciting to be here in Mumbai, playing some really impressive sides - Nepal obviously being one of them. To lead this squad of really good men is a privilege for me.

Rohit Paudel: We would have bowled, to be honest. The toss is something that’s not in our control. We’ll make the most of batting first. It’s the same wicket where the last game was played, and it should spin in the second innings, so we’ll try to use that. I think it’s a great advantage, especially playing in Asian conditions. Playing all our games here at the Wankhede helps, and we’ll try to make the most of it. We felt that’s the area we can improve from the last game, in both departments - batting and bowling. The last three to four overs have been very crucial for us. That’s where we need to hold our nerves, absorb the pressure, and be present in that moment. It’s great to have fans like them; they motivate us a lot. After the England game, we saw many social media posts showing people watching us live back in Nepal. That gives a lot of motivation to all the boys.

Probably the first thing that comes to a layman’s mind, from a culinary point of view, when one thinks of Italy, is a pizza. So, it’s no surprise that the team representing that country and making its debut at the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup will include a practitioner of one of the most Italian of trades – a pizza maker - even if was not born there. Crishan Kalugamage moved with his parents from Sri Lanka to Italy as a teenager almost two decades ago. He works at a pizzeria in Lucca in the Tuscany region of Italy, and practices his cricket around his work commitments. He is a leg-spinner and has been playing for Italy since 2022. He believes there’s some similarity between his professional and sporting trades. “It’s all about the fingertips,” he says cheekily.

Madsen, who faced the press despite being set to be sitting out of this game in the pre-match press conference, acknowledged that Nepal may hold one key advantage – familiarity and cohesion. “They play together more often. Our players are based in different countries – England, Australia and Italy – so we don’t get much time together. An event like this helps us bring our best team together,” the skipper said.

An occasion like this World Cup, therefore, is about more than just results. It is about growth. “For us, it’s about embracing everything around the World Cup,” he said. “We don’t just want to be here to take part. We want to grow from it.”

Thursday offers another step in that journey. As Madsen put it, winning in front of 35,000 passionate Nepal supporters would be “pretty special.”

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