Kamal Ghorui
KOLKATA: There is a muted curiosity around the Italian cricket team. Even though the usual buzz that surrounds an international cricket match here at the Eden Gardens is missing, a tiny number of faithful did fetch up at this iconic stadium when the Italians landed for a practice session on Sunday afternoon. They will take on Scotland here on Monday, in their maiden T20 World Cup match and skipper Wayne Madsen admits there will obviously be some butterflies in the stomach.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!“We had a good preparation and some great practice matches,” he said before getting down to a session in the nets. “But the real thing starts now.” The fact that they are in the World Cup sunk in when the tournament started on Saturday. “The boys are excited and they just want to go out there and play.” It helps that Scotland are their first opponents, a team they know quite well. “We have played them a number of times and we know quite a bit about them,” Madsen added.
It also perhaps helps that Scotland, a last-minute entry into the World Cup, might not be all that well prepared. A loss to West Indies on Saturday would have left them a little low.“We saw that game and gathered our points,” coach John Davison, a former Canada cricketer best known for his 67-ball century against the West Indies in the 2003 50-over World Cup, said. “The wicket looks pretty good for batting.”Incidentally, Italy do not have any natural grass turf wicket.“We play on artificial wickets,” Davison said. So, they have a number of adjustments to make: the surface, the atmosphere and the crowd. An official admitted that back home, they are accustomed to playing in front of spectators in single digits!Given that they won both their practice games against Canada and UAE in Chennai, as well as one game against Ireland in Dubai, their confidence will be quite high. A win against Scotland on Monday would be a dream start to their journey in cricket’s big league.
