Italian town hits cricket for a six after ball knocks out child
MUMBAI: The mayor of an Italian town has banished cricketers from the migrant Pakistani and Afghani communities to tennis and basketball courts after a two-year-old boy standing was struck by a ball while standing on the balcony of his home.
Mayor Renzo Caramaschi of Bolzano in northern Italy has banned cricket in public parks following a complaint from the boy’s parents.
The move has certainly not gone down well with the migrant communities living there.
The BBC has reported that the mayor took the action after the boy suffered a concussion after being hit on the head, in what looks like an attempt at hitting a six gone awry. The boy, who was about 100 metres away from action, has since recovered.
The mayor said he enforced the ban after the parents of the boy emailed him a complaint. There is a small community of Afghanistan and Pakistan origin in Italy.
Italian daily Corriere della Sera had reported that another northern city, Brescia, had also banned cricket from public spaces, in 2009.
According to an October 2015 estimate in an Alto Adige website, about 900 Pakistanis lived in Bolzano town and another 3,000 in the region. Afghans were 100 and 300 respectively.
Cricket may be alien to most in this nation of fanatical football fans, but there is still one famous sporting name who had toyed with the idea of picking up the bat over becoming a striker.
Former Italy forward Christian Vieri, Bolognaborn but who grew up in Australia, played cricket and football and had expressed his love for the game popular in Commonwealth countries.
“I would have loved to have been a cricketer,” he was quoted as telling Champions magazine.
“I was telling a friend last week, I would stop playing now to play cricket if I could get the same contract. I was a bit of an all-rounder at school.”