T20 World Cup 2026

The Fifa World Cup or the Uefa European Championship usually comes to one’s mind first when referring to a Scotland-Italy contest. But hang on. It’s not football, but a game of cricket featuring both countries at Eden Gardens on Monday, with Italy getting ready for their much-awaited T20 World Cup debut.

For a nation that has been a four-time Fifa World Cup winner, some reference to football is bound to be made. In fact, Italian football stalwart Andrea Pirlo has already wished captain Wayne Madsen and Co. good luck on social media, while the motivational message from Christian Vieri is still awaited.

“We've had a few messages from Pirlo, the MotoGP team... We know that Christian Vieri is a massive cricket fan. ‘Bocca al lupo’, a saying for good luck in Italy (before a challenging event) is what Pirlo has told us,” Italy’s lower-order batsman Marcus Campopiano told The Telegraph after their training session at the Eden on Sunday.

In their maiden Cup appearance, the Italian cricketers are keen on putting up a show that turns out to be inspirational even for their currently struggling football team, which will be taking on Northern Ireland next month in their playoff semi-final for this year’s Fifa World Cup. “Hopefully, we can inspire the football team on to a World Cup as well.

“That would be quite nice if we can perform to a level that inspires them to get to the (Fifa) World Cup,” Durban-born Madsen, who supports AS Roma and is a fan of Italy’s former attacking midfielder Francesco Totti, said.

Make no mistake, the Italians are taking cricket quite seriously. When skipper Madsen and head coach John Davison, who had opened for Canada in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, addressed the pre-match news conference on Sunday, the Italian Cricket Federation president Maria Lorena Haz Paz, honorary president Simone Gambino and CEO Lucca Bruno Malaspina were all present there. So was a journalist from Italian media house Corriere Dela Serra.

Honorary president Gambino, who has been to India in the past and attended the India-Pakistan Test in Chennai in 1999 as well as a few games of the 2011 ODI World Cup, also played an important role in making Italians aware of cricket.

“Before that, most of the Italians felt the batter and bowler were of the same team while the fielders were from the opposition. But then, we had Martin Crowe visiting our country following the 1992 World Cup, which helped bringing in some awareness about the sport,” Gambino recalled.

Thirtyfour years down the line, the popularity of cricket in Italy is still miles behind that of football. But Madsen and his teammates do hope for a change in scenario following this T20 showpiece. Besides, some of the Italian players and members of the coaching staff had “some pretty good conversations” with Rahul Dravid lately in Bengaluru before arriving in Calcutta.

“I think the buzz and the fan support is only going to get bigger once our Cup journey begins and once the games start to be played on television, that is only going to grow further and further. We're expecting more momentum in that regard once the tournament kicks off properly for us,” Madsen emphasised.

The "good mix of cultures" in the team is also "one huge benefit" of Team Italy, the skipper believes. "We bring that balanced mix of Australian descent, South African descent, a lot of South Asian descent as well.

"And the experience I can bring from playing a lot of cricket around the world, and also playing in a previous World Cup (Hockey World Cup for South Africa in 2006) is sort of dealing with the pressures that come with it along with the expectations and that's something we've tried to communicate," Madsen said.

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