If anyone told me about ten years ago that Italy would win a cricket match, I would have laughed it off as a joke.

So when the Italian team currently playing in the World Twenty20 Qualifier won their matches it came as pleasant news.

The fact that cricket is reaching out to new nations is a healthy sign for the sport.

Recently, a Filipino colleague asked me why is it that a bowler has to run and dance before delivering the ball when he could just stand there and throw it.

For those who do not know the game, cricket can seem very strange. No wonder the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once wrote that "cricket is a game played by 11 fools and watched by 11,000 fools". Today, his country of birth is one of the rising cricketing nations.

Many have wondered why I am so passionate about the game that takes a whole day to play.

My response to them has always been the story of rich man, who after watching a football match wondered why everyone was running after one ball when they could be given one ball each!

An addiction

The rules of cricket may seem complicated at first glance, but once the game is understood it becomes an addiction.

One wonders what Shaw would have written now after seeing over 100,000 turn up to watch a game.

To put it simply, to watch 16 emerging countries turn up to play the qualifiers in the UAE, was a great feeling.

Seeing nations like Papua New Guinea and Nepal playing good competitive cricket was very pleasing.

Also, those who trash Twenty20 should be thankful to this format of the game for attracting so many new nations.

The manner in which this format has boosted the game is remarkable.

It has made the other formats more attractive by forcing cricketers to invent new styles of batting and bowling.

This format will surely penetrate into more countries where the game has never been played.

The ICC has done the right thing by staging the qualifiers in the UAE, which has among the best facilities in the world for the game.

In fact, some of the teams were in awe of the facilities at the ICC Global Cricket Academy, and they must have realised how much they stand to gain from professional training and equipment.

It must have also enlightened them on how far they have to go to be among the best.