“We all know that T20 brings the competition levels a lot closer together and it takes one or two special performances from a couple of players in a team to win a game,” Madsen said. “We can take a lot of confidence from having watched the Nepal-England game, but also the other games. USA played really well against India first game, and likewise the Netherlands against Pakistan.
“So there have been some really good performances from the associate teams. We’ve come in with a lot of belief at the start of the tournament so I think for us is really backing ourselves and taking the game on.”
“My message to the team is to be more brave in situations to take the game on,” Davison said. “We had a few dismissals that were a little bit half-hearted [against Scotland]. Obviously, Eden Gardens was a really tough environment for bowlers, 200 looked intimidating, but I think that’s probably a pretty par score there. But I think we showed in periods with the Manenti boys and the good cricket shots at that stadium started to get the job done for us. We just need to do that for a longer period of time.”
Thursday’s fixture will mark the first international meeting between Nepal and Italy, but the disparity in crowd support is likely to be stark. Nepal’s fans turned Wankhede Stadium into a sea of blue and red against England, creating an atmosphere that resembled their home ground. Madsen, however, is relishing the prospect.
“That [support for opposition] is something that we as players have to deal with and a lot of us do have experience with dealing with big crowds,” Madsen said. “I think the noise at the Wankhede, looking at the England game, was pretty unreal. And we’ve got to embrace that.
“You’re not going to play in front of atmospheres like this very often. So go out and enjoy yourselves and really embrace the moments, that’s going to be the message to the guys. And then concentrate and think clearly with what you have to do skill-wise. I think we’d much prefer to play in front of 35,000 Nepalese than no one.”
Beyond the tournament, Madsen’s focus extends to the broader growth of the game in Italy. Central to that vision is the development of infrastructure, from grass pitches to high-performance systems, that can sustain long-term progress.
“There have been some lengthy discussions, certainly amongst our group and with the federation about medium and long-term planning in terms of how we grow the game within the country and things are being put in place for that,” Madsen said. “We need the structures around coaching, we need the facilities, there’s a lot of things that we require to happen in order for us to build the game.
“But I think what’s important is obviously having a high-performance set-up and one that identifies young talents as well and then obviously the pathway to be able to create that. I think the biggest challenge for us is that within the country there’s there’s no grass pitches and to be able to compete at a top level we have to have that. That’s number one in terms of being able to take the game further and in that regard bring international cricket into the country.”
Davison believes cricket’s return to the Olympics at Los Angeles 2028 could provide a significant benefit. “With cricket becoming an Olympic sport, we’re trying to get a stadium within Italy, and there’s our Olympic committee that are going to be supporting us with that. The exposure that we’re going to get here through being in India, that’s also going to be a big factor in that regard,” he said.
Sruthi Ravindranath is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo