As an Italian I cannot but remind that D.Vettori, L.Ronchi, A.Zampa have all Italian surnmames.
However I think none of them was born in Italy, all of them are not proficient in Italian, maybe none has ever come to Italy as tourists.
Regardless their surname and clear Italian ethnic look, they are Newzealanders, Australian.
On the other hand in Italy cricket is growing fast, although 99% of players are from subcontinent origin. So is the Italian national squad.
Although surname and skin colour is not italian at all, these cricketers are as fluent as me in Italian, Many of them were born in Italy, others born abroad have now italian passport. Bottom line: as an Italiaman I prefer to be represented by these cricketers of subcontinent origin rather than from ItalianAustralians or Italiansouthafricans that have nothing to share with my Country.
As an aside point do you think Zampa, Vettori and Ronchi have a clear ethnic Italian look?
I’ve always thought they look strikingly very Anglo Saxon. Maybe Ronchi has a little bit of a wog look but I wouldn’t have picked it. Your avatar to me is more an Italian look.
Cricinfo profile of the 'James Bond' of cricket:
FULL NAME: Angus James Mackay
BORN: 13 June 1967, Harare
KNOWN AS: Gus Mackay
I wish we could....
As of now Zimbabwe is another galaxy of cricket compared to us.
Here we don't have one single natural turf pitch...
However we enjoy pleasant village cricket. If one day a Zimbabwean stops over in Milan, he is most welcome to join my club for a match.
So for 2024 T20 WC the ICC os going to have rankings + regional qualifiers as the criteria for qualification.
2 slots guarenteed from Africa, which means assuming South Africa qualify directly by being in top 8, it gives an easy chance for Zimbabwe and Namibia to qualify. No other country from Africa is even close.
Zimbabwe are currently ranked 11th, can actually push for direct entry too by raising their ranking to 10th or above by 14th Nov. Which is the cut off date. In this case other than Namibia, one more team from Africa will be able to qualify, may be Uganda or Kenya.
Great for Zimbabwe. But an utterly stupid system yet again from the ICC. Almost comical.
So they are guaranteeing 1 slot for EAP?! So PNG basically qualify automatically, every time then. 1 (extra) slot for the americas (US qualify automatic) so Canada are basically guaranteed too.
Meanwhile Asia only gets 2 slots and some really good teams will definitely miss out. It’s a really stupid system. The regions are hugely unbalanced so it’s very silly.
There should at least be a repechage round or something
Yes, it is not fair on Asia and perhaps even European countries. ICC are obsessed with growing the game in the Americas obviously targeting the large subcontinent population in US and Canada.
As things stand, Ireland, Netherlands and Scotland will be fighting for 2 slots, unless one of them jump up the rankings to qualify automatically. That's ridiculous because with 20 teams, all three of them should definitely be playing.
Zimbabwe, in fact, will qualify directly even if they maintain the current ranking of 11th, because WI will anyhow be in the top 10, so it's effectively the next 3 best ranks.
Is Tim David going to play for Singapore in WCQ? WTF.
Seems yes. He is already 26 and Aussies seems have no interest in including him into the team. Recent Pak tour with Australia's depleted side in shorter format clearly indicates that they dont have interest in picking him.
The form he is carrying from PSL and now in IPL, bowlers going to have tough time if he plays in qualifiers