There’s something strange happening in Monte Giberto, a little town close to Petritoli, on the occasional Sunday morning. Men running about shouting ‘howzat’ and ‘LBW!!’
A young (ish) enthusiastic Englishman with a place here in Italy has decided it’s time to get the Italians into…pads, boxes and leather balls.
I’m not really au fait with cricket terminology, ‘silly mid-off’, ‘flipper’, ‘maiden over,’ etc., and these are just smattering of what is indeed another language and I’ve got enough trouble learning Italian!
I Piceni is the name of the ancient people who lived in the area of Le Marche before being pushed out by the Romans. It’s also the name of a restaurant and a few other local places no doubt but now the name is being associated with the latest craze…Cricket… it’s not a game the Italians are familiar with but they are putting their energies into team training, turning up on a Sunday morning to learn batting, bowling and fielding skills. It’s a lot of fun and at the end of the session there’s Pimm’s and cake…(homemade of course!)
There are, among the players a few experts, but the team changes every practice, some join some leave. But Dario, Ian and Francesco and a couple of others whose names escape me, are there every time.
The Man did attend, once and showed great wrist action and a true skill in ‘spin bowling’ but sadly his shoulder was painful; and I heard ALL about that; for at least a month afterwards. Will he give it another try? I think he’ll probably stick to cycling…We’ll have to wait and see…
At the moment the team is still in its infancy but watch this space to follow their progress and perhaps before long I’ll be blogging about their first match. I did notice that The Vatican had a cricket team but I think perhaps Rome will be a little too far for I Piceni to travel at the moment – sponsorship could be a problem. Perhaps the Vatican could travel over this way? Except the team don’t have a home pitch…yet…apart from Luigi’s tennis courts.
