Emilio Gay, the Durham batter, has been picked to play for Italy in the ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier (Europe), set to begin later this month.
The 25-year-old Gay, considered a Test prospect for England, has represented Italy before in 50-over cricket, playing four games in November last year. His mother's family hails from Italy, while his father's family is from Grenada. Gay himself was born in Bedford.
He looked in good touch across those four appearances, hitting a half-century in each of them.
Gay set to represent Italy again
Gay has now been picked to play for Italy in the ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier (Europe), joining former Australia batter Joe Burns, who leads the side. The side also includes two other Italian-Australian players – Harry and Ben Manenti.
Under the qualification policy laid out by ECB, players are qualified to play for England if:
- if they are a British citizen, and
- if they have not "played cricket for any ICC Full Member country except England at under 17 level or above.
The regulations also clarify that "a cricketer qualified for an ICC Associate Member Country can continue to represent that country without adversely affecting their eligibility or interrupting their qualification period unless and until the cricketer has played in an ICC event for a Full Member country."
Having joined Durham from Northamptonshire, Gay scored 919 runs at 57.43 for the latter in the 2024 County Championship Division Two, before moving on loan and scoring 100 more runs in two games for Durham in Division One.
Gay has only played 13 T20s so far, missing the Blast last year due to injury. Most recently, he represented the England Lions against the touring India A side, scoring 46, 71 & 5 across two matches.
This season, he has scored 380 runs at 38 in the County Championship, including two hundreds.
Gay has openly spoken about his aspirations of representing England, expressing his disappointment at not making it to the highest level.
"I am pushing for that top three spot in Tests"
Last year, he told Sky Cricket: "I really feel as if I am at that point in my career where I am pushing for that top-three spot in Test cricket but for whatever reason, I have not been picked for anything.
"It is hard at times when you are averaging 60 and I would like to understand a bit more why certain things have happened but that is beyond my control.
"I certainly don't want to rubbish what other people have done because there are some really talented players who have been fast-tracked into this Bazball way."
He also said expanding his white-ball game is one of the reasons he decided to play for Italy.
"My goal was to dominate red-ball cricket but now that I am more established in county cricket I want to expand my white-ball game. It was one of the reasons I picked playing for Italy."
Italy squad for ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier (Europe)
Joe Burns (C), Harry Manenti (VC), Zain Ali, Marcus Campopiano, Thomas Draca, Emilio Gay, Crishan Kalugamage, Anthony Mosca, Justin Mosca, Zain Naqvi, Jaspreet Singh, Grant Stewart
Staff: John Davison (head coach), Kevin O'Brien (assistant coach), Dougie Brown (assistant coach), Peter Divenuto (assistant coach)
Follow Wisden for all cricket updates, including live scores, match stats, quizzes and more. Stay up to date with the latest cricket news, player updates, team standings, match highlights, video analysis and live match odds.
