While there’s little doubt about the fact and highly likely for the die hard cricket fan to have heard about big names in the game such as Virat Kohli, Joe Root, Jos Buttler, Steve Smith, Jasprit Bumrah, Kagiso Rabada, Rohit Sharma and the likes, truth be told, it’s about time that the fan also gets to know a bit about (or get a touch curious about) another name.
A name that has nothing to do with the powerhouse of world cricket such as Australia, England or India. It’s that of Wayne Madsen. And another name is Harry Maneti. And that’s because either one of them could be captaining a cricketing side for its first ever official ICC recognised one day international in the imminent future ahead of the end of the year 2026.
Rather emphatically, it’s a cricket team from a nation whose culinary delights, salubrious architecture and picturesque natural beauty have caught the imagination of a world both vaguely curious and deeply passionate for times together.
Truth is, we are going to get used to hearing about the Italian one day international men’s cricket team a lot more in the near future than we generally do or have, as of this moment in time.
Wayne Madsen is generally the long standing captain of the white ball set up of the Italian cricket team, which in the month of December is going to play its first ever one day international following its brilliant recent win over Tanzania in a decisive contest in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup challenge League B.
The said victory was instrumental and even definitive in marking the rise of the one day team of Italy in that not only did the win come by a hefty margin of 8 wickets but also earned the European cricket team a deserving chance to taste history by preparing further for a maiden 50-over cricketing appearance.
Make no mistake about the fact that the Italian team has been on a bit of a role recently as far as their last 12 months of playing white ball cricket are concerned.
So how is that?
Recently, the Italian men’s team won the ICC Associate Member Men’s Team Performance of the Year 2025 at the ICC Development Awards. And earlier this year, they made their maiden T20 World Cup debut when they participated in the elite mega battle for T20I supremacy with the event being hosted in India.
Even as they weren’t able to taste any big victories, their competitiveness as seen in the contests versus the West Indies and Nepal earned them plaudits and wider recognition.
More interestingly, in the current moment, Italy definitely stand a chance to qualify for the big one day cricket World Cup that’s due to begin in South Africa and Zimbabwe for October 2027. For that, they are running in the qualifier battle alongside Uganda as their closest rivals. Having bettered teams and consistently so, such as Tanzania, Hong Kong and Bahrain, this really passionate side will be exceedingly high on their confidence and can they be doubted?
In these ODI World Cup challenger league B tournament games, Italy have been the class of the field having won 11 of their 14 games and are in great vein of form. Something that they’ll truly hope to bring to the fore when their maiden one day international appearance arrives!