Key events
4th over: England 39-1 (Salt 18, Bethell 12) Bethell gets four more with a streaky flash down to deep third. He then plinks a clip over the infield that plugs in the deep on the leg side, adding two more. Just another single through the rest of the set before a half-hearted appeal for a caught behind as Salt slashes at a wide one.
Sky have just shown a clip of Buttler before the start of the game practicing the exact same shot that proved his undoing.
Perhaps that was premeditated?
3rd over: England 26-1 (Salt 18, Bethell 5) Success for Italy as they bag a big fish. Bethell strides to the crease and with a lovely bit of timing eases his second ball to the cover fence. But just one single elsewhere, along with the wicket and three dot balls, you have to say that’s a more than handy start for Grant Stewart.
Buttler played across the line of that one. Rather than try and hit it over mid-on or back over the bowler’s head, he tried to flick it to cow corner. As a result, he skewed it off the toe-end. An ugly shot in the end.
WICKET! Buttler c Manenti b Stewart 3 (England 21-3)
Buttler can’t believe what he’s done! Stewart’s first ball is on e fullish length around middle and leg with perhaps a little bit of shape away from the right hander. Buttler never tried to keep it down but the bat turned in his hand as he caught a leading edge that flew high towards the Italian skipper at mid-off. He never looked like dropping it. Italy are on the board!
2nd over: England 21-0 (Salt 18, Buttler 3) There’s a drop-catch! But it’s about 20 rows back over fine leg. Ali Hasan lands his first ball halfway down the track and Salt swivels and nails the pull shot. Two balls later a lovely clip off his pads races away to the midwicket boundary for four more. Buttler gets on strike and will keep it for the next over with a scampered single to mid-on’s left.
1st over: England 9-0 (Salt 7, Buttler 2) England off to a top start thanks to Salt leaning back and spanking the first delivery for four down the ground. That was almost a tennis shot. Smuts gets lucky as his final ball is also dragged down but Salt picks out the sweeper at cow corner with a mighty heave. Four singles elsewhere.
JJ Smuts – who has never been to Italy – will open the bowling with some darting off-spin.
Phil Salt will face up first.
Alistair Connor writes in and wants to know, “what’s the record of this Italian side against … Scotland?”
Hmmm. Well, according to a quick Google search, they’ve played each other once with Scotland winning by 73 runs.
Hard to believe the two associates have only played each other once. I’ll keep digging (but by all means, if someone out there can correct me, please let me know).
Meanwhile the anthems are done. England in red with blue trousers. Italy in a blue hue known as blu Savoia. #4B61D1. Apparently it ids a “a shade of blue between peacock blue and periwinkle”
Nasser Hussein rings the bell and we’ll get cracking shortly.
Here come the players. A sparse crowd, but that was to be expected. Eden Gardens is a mighty arena and it is a Monday morning. Still, credit to those who turned up in time for the anthems.
Teams
England: Phil Salt, Jos Buttler (wk), Jacob Bethell, Tom Banton, Harry Brook (c), Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Jamie Overton, Jofra Archer, Liam Dawson, Adil Rashid.
Italy: Justin Mosca, Anthony Mosca, JJ Smuts, Harry Manenti (c), Marcus Campopiano, Ben Manenti, Grant Stewart, Gian-Piero Meade (wk), Crishan Kalugamage, Ali Hasan.
England win toss, bat first.
All eyes on England’s top order.
Nick Knight says, “don’t overthink it. Just chuck ‘em out and leave them to it.”
Afghanistan beat UAE by five wickets.
It was pretty comfortable in the end. Afghanistan are a proper side. England, and most other top teams, can be thankful they didn’t have them in their group.
It’s easy to patronise the smaller nations, so please take this with the utmost sincerity I intend – I just love this Italian side.
Brothers opening the batting. A wrist-spinner born in Sri Lanka who works in a pizza shop. A head coach who used to play for the side when no one cared about them. A rag tag crew punching above their weight.
If you’re not sold, take a gander at this cracking piece that I guarantee will challenge the allegiances of a few English supporters:
Harry Brook has admitted that his team has “not been at their best”.
That’s obvious. But you know what, it doesn’t matter how you start in these tournaments as long as you build momentum.
A win today would secure their passage to the Super 8s and from there, well, who knows.
If there are any early birds up and about, UAE are giving Afghanistan a proper game.
Looks like the Afghans should get over the line in a nervy chase, but they still need 28 from the final 18 balls. In the balance.
OH, Azmat has just smacked a six down the ground. 22 needed off 17. Hmmm, could be done and dusted unless there’s a wicket.
A reminder of England’s campaign so far:
Preamble
Good morning, buongiorno, how you doin’?
Welcome to the OBO of England v Italy. It seems bonkers to say, given the pedigree of both cricket nations, but we could have a proper contest on our hands.
England’s T20 World Cup campaign has failed to leave second gear. They were poor in their defeat to the West Indies and hardly convincing in their wins over Nepal and Scotland – their first triumph over European opponents in this competition.
Italy meanwhile have been a revelation. They too lost to the West Indies but obliterated Nepal by 10 wickets thanks to a pair of 60s from the Mosca brothers at the top of the order, as well as the beguiling leg spin of Crishan Kalugamage. England only crawled over the line against Nepal off the final ball of the match. If that’s anything to go by we should expect an Italian win. Right?
Well, that’s not how things go and if any one of England’s big names find form this should be a romp. But let’s not rule anything out. This could go down as a classic.
We get underway at 9:30 am in the UK, 3 pm in Mumbai.
We’ll have team news and other bits to follow.
