Nepal Eye 1st T20 World Cup Win In 12 Years, Face Debutants Italy After Nearly Shocking England

Fighting hard but not quite there, Nepal will look to go the distance and end a winless run in the T20 World Cup 2026 when they face tournament debutants Italy in a Group C match on Thursday. Having made their debut in the competition 12 years ago, Nepal recorded a couple of wins in the 2014 edition when they defeated Hong Kong and Afghanistan but the Himalayan nation has gone winless since. Interestingly, Nepal have come agonisingly close on three occasions to beat Test-playing nations but ended up on the wrong side of the result.

In 2024, they lost to South Africa by just one run and against Bangladesh by 21 runs.

But the four-run defeat in a heroic chase against England last Sunday here at the Wankhede Stadum has firmly placed them in the spotlight and created a buzz around Nepalese cricketers.

They have shown tremendous grit having honed their skills in one of the toughest formats with minimal exposure to international cricket.

A 10-year gap in playing T20 World Cups notwithstanding, Nepal matched England -- a two-time world champion -- almost on each count on the field and displayed their resolve on the biggest platform.

Neither were they bogged down by the grandeur of the stage or the weight of the expectations.As many as 17,008 fans at the Wankhede Stadium made noise for the 'Rhinos', which matched the decibel levels usually witnessed when the home team plays here.

In Kushal Bhurtel, Nepal have the top-order aggressor who can provide aggressive starts while the formidable middle-order comprising Dipendra Singh Airee, skipper Rohit Paudel and Aarif Sheikh provides them a lot of firepower.

Lokesh Bam threatened to cause a real upset against England with his brutal stroke play which left the likes of Jofra Archer and Adil Rashid stunned, even as the big-hitting Karan KC took a backseat.

However, there were a few areas of concern which Nepal will want to address as they move ahead.

They certainly did not get enough boundaries in the middle overs against England in a tall chase, and their running between the wickets also requires improvement.

To their credit, Nepal did not make too many errors with the ball for a large part of England innings, but ended up giving away far too many runs in the death overs.

On the other hand, Italy will want to leave behind their crushing 73-run loss to Scotland in the tournament-opener behind them and start afresh.

Italy also had their skipper Wayne Madsen dislocating his shoulder at the start of the game and in all likelihood, Harry Manenti would lead the side.

Italy used as many as seven different bowling options but failed to contain a side which did not have an ideal build-up to the tournament, and their response in chase of 208 was far from ideal.

Six of their batters fell in single digits; three recorded ducks.

Ben Manenti's half-century and some big hits from Harry were the only bright spots for Italy, who will want to make all-round improvement in their remaining matches of the tournament.

Teams:

Nepal: Rohit Paudel (c), Aarif Sheikh, Aasif Sheikh (wk), Dipendra Singh Airee, Basir Ahamad, Kushal Bhurtel, Sundeep Jora, Lokesh Bam, Gulsan Jha, Karan KC, Sompal Kami, Sandeep Lamichhane, Sher Malla, Lalit Rajbanshi, Nandan Yadav.

Italy: Wayne Madsen (c), Marcus Campopiano, Gian-Piero Meade (wk), Anthony Mosca, Justin Mosca, Syed Naqvi, Harry Manenti, JJ Smuts, Grant Stewart, Ali Hasan, Thomas Draca, Jaspreet Singh, Crishan Kalugamage, Ben Manenti, Zain Ali.

Match starts at 3:00pm IST.

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Topics mentioned in this article

Nepal Italy T20 World Cup 2026 Cricket