It won’t necessarily be an easy transition
John Polack30-Apr-2001It won’t necessarily be an easy transition. He’ll be at the other end of the world from his home base in Hobart. He’ll find himself in a nation he has never visited before. And he’ll be sporting the colours of a country of which he has not been a resident for any of his thirty-one years.But there’s always a certain allure to the ICC Trophy tournament. And the enchanting possibilities that come with the prospect of playing for Italy are definitely not lost on Peter DiVenuto.A hard-hitting left handed batsman and right arm medium pacer, DiVenuto’s skills took him as far as Tasmanian Second XI level in the mid-1990s. But the prospects of further representative honours seemed, effectively, to have receded from view thereafter. At least, that was, until last year, when the captain-coach of Hobart club side Kingborough was chosen in Italy’s squad for the 2000 European Championships.”I’m really quite excited about it. Last year, I was probably a little bit nervous when I went over for the European Championships in that I didn’t quite know what to expect and because they expected a fair bit from me. But I had a great time overall – and a great time with them,” he says.Building on that new-found rapport with newly-acquired teammates will form a crucial part of his preparations as he extends his horizons to the prestigious 24-team tournament that begins in Toronto in late June.”They are players who have a passion for the game,” remarks DiVenuto of a squad that also features ex-South Australian and current Lancashire player, Joe Scuderi, and three talented Sri Lankan born players now living in Italy in Kamal Karyiyawasam, Hemanta Jayasena and Samantha De Mel.”They’re passionate about it; they love it; they’re really excited about their cricket.”They’ve got a long way to go. But Italy is a developing cricket nation and that’s what this is all about. I’m in a position of being a leader within a team and it represents a challenge that I’m really looking forward to.”The challenge of representing the country that was home to his ancestors will be one of the biggest in a cricketing career that has twisted and turned for DiVenuto like a latter-day Mario Puzo novel.The tale began with his participation in junior ranks with his more famous brother, Michael, and has been supplemented with experience both as a player and in an off-field role that now has the qualified schoolteacher headed toward a long-term future in coaching.But buttressed in between was the pursuit of Australian Rules Football career which saw him become an outstanding player in Tasmania and which even won him an invitation at one time to play with Victorian team, Collingwood – arguably the nation’s most famous sporting club.By his own admission, that conspired to leave the burly all-rounder lacking hunger for cricket at different moments – and it has only been recently that the spark has fully returned. Selection for Italy has been a vital part of the mix in allowing him to make up for lost time.”I’ve played Second XI for Tasmania but I probably never really played with enough drive (to make it further). The chance to play for Italy is really great.”Against the backdrop of cricket’s biggest congregation of national teams, motivation in Canada will also stem from heritage. DiVenuto has held an Italian passport since 1996 and finds himself among the lower branches of a family tree that remained firmly rooted in Italy until his grandparents emigrated to Australia after the Second World War. It’s that connection which qualifies him for this tournament.”My grandparents came out here to create a new life for themselves and for their family. And, as a result, if I can give something back to their country in return for what they’ve given to all of us, then that’s part of my motivation for going to Canada as well,” he says.Under the complex system used to seed each of the twenty-four nations at ICCT 2001, the Italians are ranked twentieth and will be fighting from the confines of Division Two. That makes the assignment of clinching a coveted berth in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa – a prize on offer to the top three finishers in the tournament – a formidable one.While the Italian competition includes a diverse range of teams – one side even comes from Sicily – and gives the western European power a base of around 300 cricketers upon which to draw, the top players’ lack of regular contact with one another and a general paucity of well-manicured outfields also complicates the task.But it is not so formidable as to be impossible.”We should do very well in our group, even if it is very difficult for us to get through (to the World Cup) from there.”And, in one-day cricket, anything’s possible. We only need a couple of batsmen to get going and some bowlers to pick up some early breakthroughs and, all of a sudden, we could be right in the game. That’s the beauty of one-day cricket.”If we were able to get it together and produce some good form at a good time – like we did when we beat Denmark last year in the European Championships – it doesn’t matter how high the quality of the opposition is. It’s why there are upset results in one-day cricket: because it’s possible for teams to have a ‘day out’.”That’s a prospect, in theory, that could take Peter DiVenuto all the way to Kingsmead, St George’s Park or even to the Wanderers. For a man who has lived in the shadow of a sibling who has played with distinction for Tasmania, Sussex, Derbyshire and Australia, it’s a rare and a special kind of opportunity. In many ways, it’s the chance of a lifetime.
