As the assistant coach of a team that is the embodiment of the positive effects of migration, Dougie Brown is well qualified to talk on the subject.
Italy have captured global sports headlines at this T20 World Cup. First, by being there at all, when their significantly more celebrated football-playing compatriots are still muddling their way through to their own global summit. And then when they stunned Nepal in Mumbai to claim their first win.
They have done so with a side whose core is based abroad, and whose home-based players originate from overseas. And yet few sides at the competition have worn their emotional ties to their country quite so visibly as Italy.
One of the lasting memories of this tournament will be that of the Mosca brothers – Justin and Anthony – in tears when they walked off after their first-wicket alliance won the game against Nepal.
“We've been talked of as a team who are full of people who have never been to Italy, or were not born in Italy,” Brown said.
“Trust me, the tie to Italy is massive. They are all passionately Italian. Yes, they might have been brought up in Australia or South Africa, but they are typically Italian as well.
“The emotional aspect of everything they do is always there, and they're playing for something much bigger than just themselves.
“They’re carrying the spirits of their grandparents or their parents in everything that they do. That’s what makes it emotional.”
Brown himself is a good advert for the globalisation of cricket. Of the sides at the 20-team World Cup, he has a strong affiliation with a quarter of them.
He is a dyed-in-the-wool Scotsman. He played for England, an achievement of which he is so proud that a picture of him batting in the pale blue of their late 1990s ODI side is his current WhatsApp avatar.
He coached Namibia at the 2003 World Cup, while still playing county cricket for Warwickshire in the UK. He later coached the UAE, and lives in Dubai.
He is part of the think-tank – along with John Davison and Kevin O’Brien – overseeing Italy’s World Cup debut. And his wife, Amelia, is a New Zealander.
This World Cup has pitted Italy against two of those sides. They lost their opener to Scotland. Next up, on Monday, they face England.
“No, 100 percent not,” Brown said when asked if he feels any extra incentive when his current side go against one of the others with whom he is inextricably tied.
“The only thing that's important to me is me doing the best I can do to represent the people that I'm working with in that moment.
“I've been fortunate enough to have played in different environments and with different cultures. But the only thing that's important to me is going and doing a good job for Italy.”
Fair to say, it is not uncommon for Scottish sports fans to deem themselves 'ABE': Anyone But England. Brown is the polar opposite – even if he was supporting the country of his birth against their southern neighbours in the Calcutta Cup rugby on Saturday night, for example.
“I'm a passionate supporter of English cricket,” Brown said. “I've lived the majority of my life in England, represented them, and I'm very proud to have done that.
“Obviously, I am Scottish, and that will never change. I'll always support Scotland if they're playing England. That's just the nature of who I am and where I come from.
“I will also support England when they're playing against anybody, as long as it's not Scotland. Although with my wife being a Kiwi, when England are playing against New Zealand, I have to change allegiance again. Otherwise, I end up sleeping in the spare room.”
After his varied career in both cricket’s mainstream in the UK, as well as on the path less trodden in Scotland, Namibia and the UAE, Brown is grateful to be part of something new with Italy. Even though the sport has been played there for years, the present vintage is the first to play at a major ICC tournament.
“We've got the culture, we've got a really strong environment, and we've got people who are playing for the greater good,” Brown said.
“It's not just about themselves. It's very much about a legacy. We're still very much in our infancy as a team, and as a country at this level.
“Cricket’s been played in Italy for a long time, but we are still pioneers at this level. We understand the magnitude of that. We understand how precious this is to people who are lovers of cricket in Italy.”
Brown says Italy’s two remaining games – against England then West Indies – are a “free dip”. They have had success once already in the tournament, and it tasted sweet.
“I don't think any of us quite appreciated, going into a game against a [Nepal] team who have played some really strong cricket for a while, who are incredibly well supported and who are very experienced, that we'd be able to do something like that,” Brown said.
“We knew that we were in the process of creating something really, really special.”
