Rome Burns for a Game of Cricket

Date 19 October 2013 Page 52

influx of immigrants from cricket-mad was founded as a cricket club. The countries. The national team is Genoa Cricket & Football Club was es- Rome burns composed half of immigrants and half tablished by the British consul Sir of the sons and grandsons of Italian Charles Alfred Payton and other expa- emigrants. triates in 1893 after the port took on for a game “There is certainly a boom,” said strategic importance for the Empire. Simone Gambino, the president of the One of the stars of the Italian cricket of cricket Italian Cricket Federation. “There is a team is Gayashan Munasinghe, 27, growth in terms of the federation but who came to Italy from Sri Lanka at 16. there is above all a constant presence of He said that most Italian cricketers

Italy cricket in local parks.” were second-generation immigrants James Bone Rome The story of cricket’s rise in the from Asia. “It’s the young people who melting-pot of today’s Italy is told in a come to Italy because their parents are The first cricket game played in Italy new book entitled Italian Cricket Club. here. They are 100 per cent Italian.” took place in Naples in 1793 between “It’s a sport of integration because it’s a The Vatican is to announce next two team s from Lord Nelson’s fleet. sport of fair play. It’s a sport in which week that it is setting up its own cricket Two centuries later, the sport is enjoy- the ‘other’ may be an adversary but is club, to be known as St Peter’s Cricket ing an unlikely boom in a country always treated with respect,” Ilario Club. The team’s colours will be pre- better known for motor-racing, cycling Lombardo, a co-author, said. sented by the Pontifical Council for Cul- and, above all, football. For a football-obsessed country,it ture. Australia’s ambassador to the Its success is a symbol of the chang- often comes as a shock to learn that Holy See, John McCarthy, will be one ing demographics of Italy, with an one of the oldest Italian football clubs of the participants.

Date 19 October 2013 Page 52

CHRIS WARDE-JONES

Players such as Gayashan Munasinghe, a first-generation immigrant from Sri Lanka, have fuelled interest in the sport