“I think that was the best ball of my career.” Crishan Kalugamage beams as he recalls bamboozling Dipendra Singh Airee with a sharp-turning googly – the second of his three wickets that set up Italy’s historic maiden T20 World Cup win.

The celebrations from that victory against Nepal went long into the evening. As Kalugamage will relate, the Italian contingent’s road to their first World Cup hasn’t been an easy one, and the emotion was visible on the 34-year old’s face.

“I personally have no words to explain how I felt after the game,” Kalugamage tells Cricbuzz. “It was very emotional for us because after a lot of sacrifice and hard work, we got that first victory. This is a dream come true for me. Before coming to the World Cup my goal was just to get the first wicket. I’m really happy and very emotional.”

Behind Italy’s matchwinner is the story of a young Sri Lankan cricket nut who ended up finding his way with the sport in a country detached from it.

Kalugamage was 16 when he moved to Italy with his brothers – a few years after his parents had already made the switch in search of better economic opportunities. His father took up work in a factory that specialised in painting yachts, and Kalugamage admits finding life difficult in the initial few years, coming to grips with cultural, culinary and linguistic barriers.

Prior to that was a childhood in the 90s in Marawila, a coastal town in the North Western Province of Sri Lanka. It was a time when the country boasted one of its finest generations of cricketers. The 1996 World Cup triumph is a moment that Kalugamage has vague memories of – he was just four years old at the time – but it would have a significant impact on his life.

“I didn’t watch the matches because we didn’t have a TV,” Kalugamage says. “I heard about it on the radio with my grandfather. After that I watched every game Sri Lanka played. I really loved watching the Sri Lankan batters – Aravinda de Silva, Sanath Jayasuriya and after that, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene.”

Soon enough, Kalugamage tried his hand at the sport too. A student of Marawila’s St. Xavier’s College, he was a part of the Under-13 setup under the watchful eyes of his coach Daminda Maliyaratne, whom he credits as a major factor behind being a professional cricketer today. Watching videos of Shane Warne drove him towards wrist spin, though upon migrating to Italy, that took a backseat.

“When I came to Italy, for the first four, five years I took part in athletics as a long jumper and 100-metre sprinter. I wasn’t very tall then but after taking up athletics, I grew taller,” Kalugamage narrates. That led to a switch in approach – he took up fast bowling as a tennis-ball cricketer, even as he was uncertain over his future in the sport in a land known for football and not cricket.

A cricket team was soon formed in 2013 in Lucca, where he plied his trade as a fast bowler. The game began to spread and Kalugamage played for multiple clubs over the next couple of years. In 2015 he moved to Roma Cricket Club, whom he continues to represent.

He continued his journey as a fast bowler, and while the thought of returning to Sri Lanka for greener pastures wasn’t an option with his family in Italy, Kalugamage did have a pitstop there in 2019, bowling to some of the big household Sri Lankan names.

“I had a chance to play for Kandy Customs. I played a few T20 matches in the Division One Premier League as a fast bowler. I played some List A matches too. My debut was against Tamil Union Cricket Club who had Kamindu Mendis, Jeevan Mendis and Isuru Udana. I bowled the first over and got a wicket,” Kalugamage says with a wide smile.

With the tribulations of fast bowling came a streak of injuries, casting a doubt over his future in the sport. Rekindling his roots with his first calling proved to be a wise move. “One day I tried bowling leg spin at my club and it worked. My coach Prabath Ekneligoda (also the founder of Roma Cricket Club) told me to start bowling leg spin again since it came naturally to me.”

[Cricbuzz]