Minnow miracle would make millions smile

The Scots send people home "tae think again". Canadians sing "with glowing hearts we see thee rise". The Italians get straight to the point: "We are ready to die." The point is the point for the United Arab Emirates: "My country, my country, my country, my country."

The Nepalese believe "bloods of the braves make it free and immotile". In Namibia, "land of the brave, freedom fight we have won. Glory to their bravery, whose blood waters our freedom." Omanis want to "raise high to the sky, and with light we shall fill the universe". Americans ask if we can see, "by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming."

The quotations above have not been randomly chosen. They are drawn from the lyrics of the anthems of eight of the 20 countries represented by teams in the men's T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka and India.

And not just any eight sides. Officially they are the associate teams at the tournament. Unofficially they are the minnows - those who don't belong; who are only there to be beaten by their bigger, better brothers; who should be grateful and honoured they are allowed to breathe the same rarefied air as those bigger, better brothers with whom they don't deserve to share a field. Except that the little brothers are, for the most part, having none of it.

At Eden Gardens on Saturday, the Scots had five wickets and 22 balls available to score the 50 they needed to beat West Indies when Romario Shepherd's raid of four wickets in five balls began to make the Windies winners by 35 runs.

Cases of mistaken identity don't end there. Also on Sunday, John Davison, Italy's coach, was asked "how do you react to the tag of being the B team of Australia". Six members of Italy's squad were born in Australia. But that means nine - twice as many - were not. Do the math already.

"I haven't heard us referred to as Australia B, and it's probably not something we'd like to hear," Davison, a Canadian, said. "We're the Italian team, and if you speak to the majority of the boys you'll see their Italian roots and the way they connect to the country."

At the Wankhede, also on Saturday, the Americans cornered India for 12.4 overs in which the co-hosts crashed to 77/6. Suryakumar Yadav's 49-ball 84 not out took the Indians to a defendable 161/9 on their way to victory by 29 runs.

A day later at the same ground, Nepal needed 10 off the last to beat England. Sam Curran limited the damage to half that many. Did that make the Nepalese rue missing the opportunity to do the outrageous, or give them hope because they narrowly missed doing so?

Also on Sunday, in Colombo, Oman batter Jatinder Singh said: "[Test-playing countries] have better gameplans, and they play a good brand of cricket. But as the associate nations we are no less than the full members. The only thing is we hardly get a chance to play against them. If we play against them more often our level will go up and you will see an amazing brand of cricket from the associate nations."

Sadly, the minnows were not as mighty on Monday. To the Italians fell the ignominy, in Kolkata, of being routed by fellow small fry. They conceded 207/4 against Scotland, who bowled them out for 134. At least Oman did better against Zimbabwe in Colombo, but not by much. They were rattled out for 103 with Richard Ngarava, Blessing Muzarabani and Brad Evans each taking three wickets for fewer than 20 runs. The Zimbabweans won by eight wickets with 6.5 overs remaining.

Would Canada claim a coup in Monday's late game in Ahmedabad? With glowing hearts they rose to the challenge, but South Africa were too strong. First they scored 213/4, the highest total of the tournament to date. Then Lungi Ngidi took 3/13 in his first two overs to make a shock win impossible. The South Africans won by 57 runs.

Even so, Ngidi had warm words for the Canadians: "I think they did very well tonight. With the bowling, they were able to apply pressure and they got four wickets in the middle period. That's world-class for any team. And then for us to have them four down in the powerplay and them still being able to bat out their 20 overs, they can be very proud of what they did tonight."

Opportunities remain for the minnows to manufacture a miracle. Any miracle will do. Millions beyond their borders would cheer them on, and think again about the game they thought they knew.

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