Between June 9 and 16, the Italian men’s cricket team participated in the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Sub Regional Europe Group A Qualifier tournament, involving 10 teams.
They were undefeated and handsomely beat Romania by 160 runs in the final. The team will progress to the final stage of European qualification to be held in 2025. Currently, they are ranked 29th in the ICC T20I rankings. Saudi Arabia is 32nd.
Italian cricket looks to be ascendant. It has not always been that way. This has been chronicled in two books authored by Simone Gambino, a past chairman of the Italian Cricket Federation and now its honorary president. He has penned a fascinating story which he has graciously summarized for me in English, and that has informed much of this article.
It is thought that British merchants and sailors introduced cricket to Italian ports in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. There is even mention of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson organizing a match in Naples in 1793.
Cricket became popular amongst the elite in Italy and flourished throughout the 19th century. In September 1893 the Genoa Cricket and Athletic Club was formed by a group of British emigrants, football being a secondary concern.
In 1899, another group of emigrants led by Herbert Kilpin of Nottingham founded the Milan Football and Cricket Club, AC Milan, to remind them of home.
This apparent focus on cricket was soon eclipsed by the rise of football, and later by the rise of fascism. Its refusal of all that was English, excluding football, meant that cricket disappeared, not to be reborn until after 1945.
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