Former Australian cricketer Joe Burns announced as new captain of Italy T20I team

Cricket Italy have named Joe Burns as their new T20I captain. Burns was born in Brisbane, Queensland and even represented Australia at the international level, but he left his home country for Italy a few years ago and is all set to captain the Italian side now.

It is not new to see a player from a Test-playing nation move to a lower-ranked cricket team in the international arena. In the recent past, players like Corey Anderson, Unmukt Chand, Bipul Sharma, Hammad Azam, Saurabh Netravalkar, Rusty Theron, and others have changed their nationalities for better opportunities in cricket.

Joe Burns' story has been different. He played for Australia from 2014 to 2020. His last appearance for Australia came in the Boxing Day Test match against India in 2020 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

In 2024, Joe made up his mind to switch to Italy to pay tribute to his late brother Dominic. He qualified to play for Italy because of his mother's heritage, and the right-handed batter has already played five T20Is for his new national team. Now, he is all set to captain the Italian side.

Italy will participate in the T20 World Cup Qualifiers in June next year. It will be interesting to see if Burns can lead Italy to their first T20 World Cup appearance.

Joe Burns has scored 1 century and 1 half-century for Italy in 5 T20I innings

Burns has amassed 211 runs in five innings for the Italian side in T20I cricket. He has averaged 70.33 so far with the bat, with his highest score being 108*. While he lost his wicket for a duck in his last match against Singapore on November 16, Burns blasted a magnificent 82 against Uganda on November 13.

Apart from his batting, Joe Burns is also known for his bowling. He can bowl both medium pace and off-spin. In the fixture against Singapore, Burns returned with figures of 1/7 in three overs, including one maiden over.

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