From Talgate to T20 World Cup: Jaspreet Singh's long road via Punjab and parking lots

In a quiet street in Talgate, a village near Bergamo in northern Italy, the game began with a taped tennis ball. There were no turf wickets and no sense that the sport being improvised between cars in parking lots would one day take Italy seamer Jaspreet Singh to a T20 World Cup.

"When you're small, you watch cricket on TV and see big stadiums," Jaspreet, 32, tells ESPNcricinfo. "Then you come to the same type of grounds and practise at venues like the Wankhede or Eden Gardens… it just feels like a dream."

Jaspreet's story, though, begins far away from Italy - in Dhandwar village in Punjab, India. He was 13 when he moved continents, his father Tirath Singh taking the family to a new country in search of a better life.

Tirath had initially moved to Italy when Jaspreet was only three and still living in Punjab. He worked in a factory manufacturing baby strollers and later called his family over in pursuit of better education and opportunity. A life in cricket was a distant thought then because the immediate concern was learning to communicate with new neighbours and classmates.

"The language barrier made everything difficult," Jaspreet says. "It would have been easier in an English-speaking country. Initially, I couldn't even talk to classmates."

At the time, Italy's South Asian community was still small and scattered. Jaspreet attended separate Italian-language classes during middle school (scuola media) before joining mainstream lessons. In those early years, football dominated local sporting culture, and Jaspreet excelled at it, representing both his school and village team. Cricket resurfaced almost by accident.

"A close friend told me, 'You used to play cricket earlier. Why are you on the football field?'" Jaspreet says. "So I left football and took up cricket again."

Introduced to the leather-ball game only then, Jaspreet discovered organised cricket clubs and his seam-bowling prowess quickly impressed others. It earned him T20I and List A debuts for Italy in 2019.

Back then, fixtures were against the likes of Isle of Man, Norway, Denmark, Germany and Finland. Now, as he prepares to bowl to players of the calibre of Harry Brook, Sherfane Rutherford, Jos Buttler and Shimron Hetmyer, Jaspreet reflects on how he made that step-up.

"I moved to England three years ago, which is a common pathway for aspiring players from emerging cricket nations," he says. "That bridged the gap in quality between Italy and the rest of the cricket world.

"I played in the Birmingham League, which is widely regarded as one of England's strongest club competitions, sitting just below county cricket and featuring experienced professionals."

But while life in England was rewarding for Jaspreet as a cricketer, it took a toll financially. So he worked as an Uber driver, a flexible job that allowed him to schedule gym sessions and practice.

"I could manage my day well," he says, "and I also obtained a trucking licence as a backup plan if cricket did not work out."

Now with exactly 50 caps to his name across T20I and List A cricket, Jaspreet has established himself as a seam bowler operating in the mid-130kph range. In T20Is, he has an economy rate of 7.29 and a strike rate of 17.3 - impressive numbers for a bowler who has shaped his game largely through his own enthusiasm. With limited access to coaching and only minor county cricketers to learn from, he says he had little choice but to find self-motivation, admiring AB de Villiers' batting and idolising Jasprit Bumrah's bowling.

Looking back at his swift rise on the field and the high of T20 World Cup exposure in his country of birth, Jaspreet says it would not have been possible without his wife's support.

"My family thought that after marriage, I might move away from cricket as I'd have more responsibilities," he says. "But my wife supported me." The two met as students in Italy and later reconnected in England a decade later. During Jaspreet's first year there, she footed the bills, something he says he is "grateful for eternally".

Memories like these make the tough days worth it. As Jaspreet and Italy's time at the T20 World Cup winds down, his journey stands as proof that opportunities can be carved out through persistence. He leaves the tournament with experiences that money cannot buy and the reassurance that the sacrifices did not go to waste.