Shubham Ranjane looks up and sees the ball coming straight back. India are 63 for 4. Their captain has just made a big mistake. Now both their fates hang in the balance.

Max O’Dowd looks up and sees the ball trying to evade him. Pakistan are 125 for 7. Their finisher has just made a big mistake. Now both their fates hang in the balance.

Lokesh Bam looks up and sees the ball flying away. Nepal are 171 for 5. He has just landed an almighty blow. History is in the offing.

Grant Stewart looks up and sees the ball clearing the ropes. Italy are 173 for 7. He has just landed an almighty blow. History is in the offing.

Editor’s Picks

1 Related

Associate teams at this T20 World Cup have looked up and found themselves the equal of long established powerhouses. And though none of these moments led to a satisfactory outcome for any of these men, they may still be significant. The gap is closing.

There were predictions before the start of the tournament that 300 would be breached. Both out there and in here largely because of how India, England and Australia had batters who have become exceptional at connecting white ball with blue sky. Ishan Kishan and Will Jacks and Travis Head should look into whether their wingman skills work on human beings. It would be the end of heartbreak.

play

1:19

T20 World Cup – Dipendra Singh Airee has fascinating skills and power, says Sanjay Bangar

Sanjay Bangar talks about how he became a fan of Airee’s batting this T20 World Cup

Franchise cricket forms a big part of a modern-day player’s development. The consistent game time. Pressure comparable to international cricket. And actual legitimate glory. The proliferation of T20 leagues is such that there is a tournament for every month of the year and that means an increased demand for talent. If the top tier is busy, scouts go looking elsewhere and find someone like Dipendra Singh Airee. Live wire in the field. Ice-cold with the bat. Brand new PSL recruit for Islamabad United. Or their attention lands on Andries Gous. Solid technical ability which predisposes him to long innings, one of which he unfurled in the cauldron of a playoff game against MI Emirates. That 120 not out is now the highest score in four seasons of the ILT20.

Paul van Meekeren has been part of franchises in West Indies, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and UAE. He’s also had a stint with Somerset in the T20 Blast when he shared a dressing room with Mahela Jayawardene. Such opportunities have helped Associate nations develop along with their Full Member counterparts, and now that some of the time they spend in obscurity is taken up by competing for the same trophies as Kieron Pollard or David Warner, they come to World Cups better equipped and star in unexpectedly tight games.

Nepal came within one shot of beating England just over a week ago. Sam Curran, who had to dig his side out of the hole, told the BBC, “The Associate nations are playing more often and they are getting so much better. They’re getting exposed to better cricket, better grounds… [Nepal] are a dangerous team throughout this World Cup so we’ll watch out for them.”

Scotland pushed England too, which is weird considering a week out from the start of the World Cup they weren’t even supposed to be here. Then the Bangladesh-ICC standoff happened and it was all hands on deck. “They may take our lives but they’ll never take our freedom” has been bumped to second place on the list of most inspiring things ever said by a Scot, behind whatever Trudy Lindblade told her staff to get them working day and night so that Richie Berrington and his men arrived in India and Sri Lanka without so much as a wrinkle in their kits.

play

2:20

T20 World Cup 2026 – Sanjay Bangar: Scotland gave a very good account of themselves

Sanjay Bangar and Monty Desai on Scotland’s World Cup campaign

On Tuesday, this rag-tag group showed that iron sharpens iron at the Associate level as they played out a see-sawing, humdinger of a contest with Nepal. Airee was right in the middle of it. He took down the man who was taking down his team. Michael Leask, who had picked up three wickets in 14 balls, was smashed for 20 runs in an over.

Over in the dugout, Stuart Law could finally smile. Globalisation is so commonplace nowadays that it has entirely dulled the significance of this image. Go back even ten years and ask yourself if you would believe a team like Nepal would be able to attract an Australian to coach them. They have two actually. Ian Harvey has been spilling his slower ball secrets to them.

Gary Kirsten is consulting with Namibia. Ryan Cook is going above and beyond with Netherlands. Lalchand Rajput, who was manager of the Indian team when they lifted the first ever T20 World Cup, is wearing UAE colours now and saying “don’t take us lightly.” Imagine all the experiences they’ve had in all the years they’ve been active at the very top of the game, the players they have crossed paths with, all of that wisdom is trickling down. And importantly, it is being received by people who have been starving for this attention, who will do whatever it takes to prove they belong.

Anthony Mosca celebrates Italy’s first World Cup win Getty Images

When Jofra Archer shrugged his shoulders after being hit for a six, he was probably consoling himself. These things happen in T20. It did in 2009. Then again in 2014. So it’s no biggie if in 2026, men named Grant Stewart who, playing for a country which has never been to a cricket World Cup, launch yorkers, that even got a little bit of tail in, back the way it came. It’s not a vendetta against England no matter how striking the symbolism is of a bunch of upstarts and amateur adjacents dunking on the nation whose aristocrats saw rural children playing the game for fun and decided to add a whole lot of rules to it so it could serve a higher purpose – betting.

Stewart, who so nearly won it for Italy, was a product of the English system. He played for Kent and won the T20 Blast in 2021. This is the other pillar that Associate cricket stands on. Full Member players who flamed out in their own countries but have links to theirs. Roelof van der Merwe‘s switch from South Africa to Netherlands has allowed him to enjoy a 17-year career at the end of which he will have played more T20 World Cup matches than a T20 World Cup winner (Marlon Samuels) and taken more T20 World Cup wickets than a T20 hall-of-famer (Sunil Narine). This mutually beneficial arrangement, where cricketers who still feel they have more to give and cricket teams who are in need of such services, has had enough of an effect on the field. Associate life can sometimes feel like dragging a stone uphill, given the calendar they get stuck with. USA and Canada, who were both at the 2024 T20 World Cup, had to wait until this one to play a Full Member oppositions again. A little more exposure could be just the thing that helps these guys hold their nerve better.

Stewart was on strike with 25 needed off eight balls. Harry Brook had to touch base with his bowler. Curran ran in again. Close to 24,000 at Eden Gardens moved to the edge of their seat. Marcus Campopiano, in the Italy dugout, was one of them. In that moment, as in those that Ranjane and O’Dowd and Bam were part of, anything could have happened. That is the romance of sport. That is when it most resembles life. Affirms it even. The fact that there were so many of these – even if none of them could go on to fruition – points to something really cool. Anything might not have happened this time, but it feels like it will. Soon. And when it does, we should try not to call it an upset. We could just say USA beat India. Or Netherlands beat Pakistan. Or Italy beat England.