They are actually not allowed to play in the town proper, so they are performing outside of Monfalcone near the airport in Trieste.
Those who try, they say, might be fined up to €100 (£84).
Captain of the team Miah Bappy claims, “The police would have been here to stop us if we were playing inside Monfalcone.”
He gestures to a group of teenage Bengalis who were “caught” participating in their national sport in the neighborhood park. A police patrol interrupted their game, unaware that they were being recorded by security cameras, and handed over it.
Cricket is said to be unsuitable for Italians. However, I’ll be honest with you: it’s because we are outsiders,” Miah explains.
The cricket ban has come to represent the long-standing tensions that are resurfacing in Monfalcone.
The town’s ethnic composition is distinct from any other in Italy: of its little over 30,000 residents, about one-third are foreigners. The majority of them are Muslims from Bangladesh who started coming here in the late 1990s to construct enormous cruise ships.
As a result, mayor Anna Maria Cisint of the far-right League party claims that Monfalcone’s cultural identity is in jeopardy.
Riding the wave of anti-immigration sentiment to power, she set out to “protect” her town and uphold Christian principles.
