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Kathmandu Monday July 16, 2001 Shrawan 01, 2058.
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Nepali cricket’s World Cup dreams but harsh
reality
By Suman Malla
KATHMANDU, July 15 - Cricket enthusiasts in Nepal have a dream. The
dream to qualify for the World Cup. The participation in the
International Cricket Council (ICC) Trophy took Nepal close to the
doorstep of the World Cup cricket if not making into it.
"Our boys performed better than we had expected," Tarini Bikram Shah,
the vice-president of the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) had said,
giving his reaction to the media over the team’s overall performance in
Toronto. "It’s always difficult to focus after what the team had to gone
through."
Nepal, after a series of difficulties in obtaining entry visas to
Canada, the officials said, was left with only 11 fit players to choose
from the team of 14 as some of the leading players fell ill.
While these problems merit an excuse, some of them even went to such an
extent that the format adopted in the ICC Trophy was unconvincing.
However, a sober view shows there is something amiss in the whole
approach in the country’s cricket setup. A lack of competitive domestic
league structure compared to most other Associate members and
competitions confined to over-limited matches has telling effect on
team’s performance, any visiting cricket coach would tell you.
The Australian coach, Brian Wiggins, who was here to coach Nepal
Under-19 team, conceded that there has been much more interest in
cricket since his first visit here at the time of the second ACC Trophy.
"You should put up a proper league format to give the players more
experience at the longer form of the game, an adequate First Class
structure," Wiggins had explained. "Obviously there is other important
factor—financial resources."
A few individual innings here and there notwithstanding, Nepali team’s
batting was a complete failure. They were unable to adjust to the
conditions and pump up the pace, despite having enough wickets and overs
at their disposal. That simply overshadowed the couple of wins that they
registered.
Jai Kumar Nath Shah, the president of CAN, concedes the points.
"I’d say it was a satisfactory performance," he said. "Yet, we feel
there’s much remain to be done."
Explaining the existence of such longer version of cricket in Nepal
during his playing days, he revealed that CAN is planning to restructure
the current format of the Jaya Trophy competition into two-day matches
with the final to be played over three days.
"Besides, efforts will be made to tap young talents and give them needed
match exposure," added Shah, who was nominated as a member of the ACC
Development Committee last year. "Talks are on with Pakistani cricket
officials for an away tour before the ACC U-19 Trophy."
Nepal is playing host to the ACC Youth Under-19 Trophy in October with
eight teams from the region. According to Shah, ACC will bear
transportation and accommodation costs of the visiting teams while CAN
will find sponsors to raise the rest of the fund to hold the tournament.
Nepal has been receiving an annual grant amounting to £ 30,000 from ICC
since 1997, a year after the cricket’s world governing body recognised
it as an Associate member in 1996.
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