Italy confirmed they will be the team to beat at the European Under 17 B Championships on the Isle of Man when they gained sweet revenge over Belgium.

The Belgians had won the last Under 17 final, against Italy, two years ago but this time they were blown away by an superb Italian bowling display which seems certain to cause the rest of their opponents plenty of problems later in the tournament.

Muhammad Adnan started the Belgium collapse with the wickets of Robert Sehmi and Jonathan Aron in successive balls and that was to be a feature of the innings. With three golden ducks, three bowlers were on a hat-trick but like Adnan before them, Jakub Peret and Harpreet Singh failed to make it three in three. Still their final figures were impressive with Adnan taking two for five, Peret four for 13 and Singh three for 17.
After Sehmi's 30 and Fraser McRae's 17, no else reached double figures for Belgium as they slumped from 46 for one to 76 between the 10th and 22nd overs.

Italy captain Roshendra Abewickrama took the first wicket, just two balls into the innings to follow his classy knock of 76 from 98 balls which was the backbone of his side's total of 214 for five. He was happy to keep wickets intact, only 69 coming off the first 20 overs but, crucially, for the loss of just one wicket. The charge started immediately after the drinks break so by the time the second wicket fell less than three overs later, when Abdullah Chowdhury was stumped for 35, Italy had already added another 20 runs.

The rest of the batsmen all scored at better than a run-a-ball, even though they reached the boundary only once. That came from Singh who hit 26 off 23 balls and Peret hit 37 off 36 as Belgium ended up using eight bowlers. They are unlikely to be the last attack this week to suffer at the hands of the Italians.