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3 min readFeb 9, 2026 01:06 PM IST
Cricket - at Kolkata no less - offers a chance to get one back, in a different sport. (AP Photo)
The Azzurri might be known for their shenanigans in the sport with the perfectly round sphere – i.e in football. But it’s in the oblong-shaped world of rugby, that the Italians sent Scotland into one right tizzy handing them a scalding 18-15 defeat at the Six Nations tournament in drippy downcast Rome on Sunday.
Scotland – where Calcutta Cup means the traditional rugby fixture against the Auld Enemy England that will take place at Murrayfield next Sunday – as a nation, has been plunged into despair after the Sunday result at rugby, where the Italians scored two tries in the first 15 minutes and Scotland never recovered from it. Their sluggish game as against the upbeat Italians, cast a deep gloom. Cricket – at Kolkata no less – offers a chance to get one back, in a different sport.
Nova News wrote, “The Stadio Olimpico in Rome bore witness to a Scottish nightmare as Gregor Townsend’s side slumped to an 18-15 defeat against Italy in their Six Nations opener, a result that will send shockwaves through Murrayfield and pile immense pressure on the under-fire coach. Townsend cut a desolate figure at the final whistle, head buried in his hands, the miserable Roman weather mirroring the gloom that now engulfs Scottish rugby.”
Interestingly, after Bangladesh was kept out, Scotland got slotted into this Group of Despondency, if not death, where England, Scotland and Italy carry sharpened knives in entirely different sports, but which loom large on their team’s moods, tuned as they are into tidings from back in Europe.
Italy might not be a Commonwealth nation – where cricket thrived – but it’s tied into the cricketing web in other English sports, and getting sucked into it by the day, owing to cricket headed to the Olympics and their diaspora in another key outpost, Australia.
Interestingly at rugby on Sunday, Louis Lynagh, a 25-year-old winger, born in Italy but raised in England, put the first nail in the Scots coffin, scoring and assisting on those early two tries with the second pick-up right under the goal, that buried the Scots.
His father – is Australian icon Michael Lynagh.
“Winning here under these conditions gives us a lot of confidence against Ireland,” Lynagh Jr was quoted as saying by Nova News. The Italians fancy a shy at defeating Ireland next, after they were destroyed by France. “We will have another game plan for the Irish,” the winger said as quoted by Nova News.
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For Monday, all eyes will be on Italy’s cricket ace Grant Stewart who plays County cricket for Kent, and even captained them in June 2025.
Funnily, or maybe somebody at ICC has gleefully managed to align the stars, but Cricket’s Calcutta Cup – England vs Scotland, will happen the same time and date as Rugby’s original Calcutta Cup, that will get underway at Edinburgh – on Valentines Day.
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