With only seven spots left in the race to make the 20-team 2026 T20 World Cup next year in India and Sri Lanka, Italy made a stunning jump to close in on qualification after beating Scotland by 12 runs in Voorburg, Netherlands, on Thursday in the Europe Regional Final qualifiers.
Led by former Australia batter Joe Burns, Italy’s win put them on the brink of a momentous maiden ICC tournament appearance if they can stave off a challenge on Friday. Five teams were in contention to qualify for the next edition of the T20 World Cup when the European qualifiers began last week on July 5. Heading into the last two days of action, Guernsey are the only team to be knocked out with the Netherlands, Italy, Scotland and Jersey finding themselves in a nervy race.
At the end of the single round-robin stage on Friday, the top-two placed teams will qualify for the World Cup. A series of interesting results and two washed out matches have meant that Italy are in firm position to pull off a stunning spot at the World Cup. However, they will take on the Netherlands as Jersey go up against Scotland on the final day.
While Italy are currently up ahead in the standings ahead of the Netherlands, a defeat could mean that they could lose the coveted top-two spot to the winner of the Scotland-Jersey clash, with Net Run Rate (NRR) coming into the equation.
With their superior NRR holding them in good stead to make it to the T20 World Cup, Italy will need to avoid a massive defeat to Netherlands at the very least to give a stiff challenge to both Jersey and Scotland to win their contest by a substantial margin. Nothing like a victory over the Dutch in their backyard, Italy will go up to an unassailable lead of seven points in four games. That will then force Netherlands into a stiff corner, with the winner of the Scotland vs Jersey favoured to take the second spot.
