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Kathmandu Monday September 18, 2000 Aswin 02, 2057.
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Selection of cricketers for ACC Trophy
unjustified
By a Post Reporter
KATHMANDU, Sept 17- The selection of 33 probables for the upcoming Pepsi ACC Trophy in
UAE beginning Nov 15 has raised a lot of eyebrows.
The selection of the players said to be done by a Selection Board under National Sports
Council
under the Chairmanship of Resham Gurung(a former volleyball player) and with the help of
some
of the officials from Cricket Association of Nepal(CAN), has used little head and more
guesswork,
said a cricket player requesting annonymity.
"The very fact that a volleyball player headed the selection committee speaks volume
of the
neglect shown by concerned authority," he said.
The surprise ommission from the probable list includes the names of cricketers like Monish
Shrestha, Sandeep Shrestha, Kalam Ali, Aamir Akhtar, Monir Shrestha, Nabin Ghimire and a
few
others.
The random selection without anyshort of homework can also be gauged by the fact that a
few of
the players selected have, in fact refused to be a part of the close camp, which is now
going on.
However, Basudev Pradhan, Vice President of CAN and one of the ‘members’ of the
selection
board defends his selection procedure saying the selection was done keeping in mind the
criteria
such as the performances in the 15th and 16th Jaya Trophy, current batting averages,
performances in the Pepsi Asia Cup ‘98 held in Kathmandu and Youth Under-19 World Cup
in Sri
Lanka.
But even if we go by Basudev Pradhan’s reasoning, it is hard to see how a batsman
like Monish
Shrestha can miss out when he bagged the best batsman award in the 15th Jaya Trophy ?And
can an event (Pepsi Asia Cup) held two years ago work as a platform to gauge the form of
players which plays the most important part in a game of cricket. Similarly, the talent of
another
dynamic batsman Nabin Ghimire has been totally ignored."One may not be surprised if
the
selection board even knew the name of these players, leave alone their talent," said
Kiran
Bajracharya, a cricket enthusiast.
Similarly, the performance of Munir Shrestha, who has won 10 man of the match award out of
25
matches he has featured in recent time has been completely overlooked. Munir also has the
distinction of being the first Nepali to hit a century in the first class match in India.
A source also said that because of the opting out of some of the probables , a few more
players
have been selected. But here again it seems CAN has given little thought to Nepal’s
fragile
batting line up and the form.
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