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| Kathmandu, Wednesday January 01, 2003 Paush 17, 2059. |
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Bright beginning and end in cricket console
gloomy retreats
By Suman Malla
KATHMANDU, Dec 31:Sports had it all in 2002: Brilliant acts
of performers that promise bright future as well as unravelling of events with layers of
confusion, bumbling and grumbling, and sometime sinister undertones.
Nothing captivated the Nepali sports lovers
in the year as did cricket. Nepal pulled a string of outstanding results, repeatedly
catching imagination of the whole cricket world.
A propitious cricket journey began in
February with the U-19 team’s tour down under for the Youth World Cup in New Zealand.
Nepali U-19, the only qualifier from among the non-Test playing countries, surprised
everyone when they scaled an unprecedented height reaching the final of the plate
championship.
Although the end result - loss to the
Zimbabweans by 137 runs - may not have unfolded to its liking, Nepal proved its potential
with seven wins in a trot, including two against Test playing nations: Pakistan and
Bangladesh.
Nepal’s cricket joy hardly seemed to
stop there. In July, the national team, under the captaincy of Raju Basnet, kept the
country glued to cricket as they progressed to the final of fourth Asian Cricket Council
(ACC) Trophy in Singapore. The team lost in the final to the United Arab Emirates but they
accomplished their mission: secure a seat to the 2005 Asia Cup - the tournament that
features all four Test teams of the sub-continent.
And more recently, Nepal gave ample evidence
of its talent in pipeline when U-15 team made it all the way to the semi-finals of the
U-15 Asia Cup in UAE for a perfect cricket wrap up for the year. Following the footsteps
of their seniors, the U-15 boys blossomed prominently in the desert Emirate. While they
went down fighting to more experienced Indian and Pakistani sides in the 16-team
tournament, they did not return without a mark, though.
Their intrepid performance in winning five
matches including that against Bangladesh saw seven players forcing their way into the ACC
U-15 team. Nepali team captain Raj Shrestha was also named the skipper of the non-Test
playing Asia team to tour Sri Lanka next February. So far so good! These encouraging
results surely suggest that Nepal is on "fast track" to gain One-day status.
However, cricket has its own share of
misgivings. The selection of Nepal as a site for ACC’s principal cricket academy came
as a reward for tremendous potential shown by country’s cricketers at international
level. But wrangling among country’s sports administrators over the choice of venue
has put Nepal’s chances of winning the project in jeopardy.
Escape routes
It was also the year of Asian Games. But
sadly, it brought more negative publicity than medals to Nepal. Fifteen of the total 50
Nepali athletes, who participated in the 14th Asian Games held between September 29 -
October 14, suddenly became notoriously famous. Their vanishing act coupled with
disproportionate number of officials - 50 (the exact number may never surface) - simply
put three bronze medals in taekwondo won by Renuka Magar, Ritu Jimee Rai and Deepak Bista
into oblivion.
Busan was not the lone event where Nepali
players chose to slip away. Three members of the Nepal U-16 women football team, which
participated in the Norway Cup football in July, went missing in Oslo. Even as the
officials of Geeta Rana-led ANFA came up with a statement assuring the return of three
players, newspapers in the Nordic country confirmed that team captain Pashupati Rana,
Sushila Suslim and Ganga Gurung had requested for an asylum.
Khemu Giri, a marathon runner from Royal
Nepal Army’s Tribhuvan Club, who went to run at Belgian marathon, was lost in the
meanders of Grande Place in Brussels, never to return back.
While no effort has been planned to prevent
such incidents from recurring in the future, those administering country’s sports
came up with a ridiculous answer to gloss over the issue: "The officials attended the
Games at their own expenses."
In fact, such disappearances of athletes at
international meets mirror pathetic inadequacies on the part of sport administrators. It
was after four years’ agonising wait that the gold medallists of the eighth SAF Games
were allotted their due cash rewards this year.
In Puskar Dhoj Shahi, Nepal lost a great
boxer in its boxing history. Shahi, 43, was suffering from tuberculosis meningitis. The
late Shahi had fetched Nepal one of its first international gold medals winning the light
flyweight category at the first South Asian Federation (SAF) Games held in Kathmandu in
1984. Shahi, who dominated the category throughout his boxing career, also won two silver
medals at the subsequent SAF Games held at 1985 and 1987.
The worsening security condition in the
country also deprived Nepal a maiden opportunity to play host to the world class event.
Junior World Weightlifting Championships, scheduled to take place from June 2-9 in the
capital, was cancelled as the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) declared
Kathmandu unsafe for the event and subsequently took it away to Czech Republic.
Big tie-ups
With the feud in country’s football
reaching its second year, for once, it seemed as if it would not take much longer for
anyone to learn that a football contains 32 panels. Fortunately, the timely intervention
of the Ministry of Sports in November led to the official merger of the two ANFAs.
A possible unification process between the
leaders of two parties Ganesh Thapa and Geeta Rana in early October was disrupted. In a
surprise move, NSC relieved off Geeta Rana from the ANFA presidency and promoted its
vice-president Karma Tshering Sherpa to her place.
However, the problem is far from over yet.
Geeta Rana and Lok Bahadur Shahi, a long-time general-secretary to FIFA and AFC-affiliated
ANFA still remain outside the united body.
It would be interesting to see how Ganesh
Thapa, who has been given the helm of ANFA, would lead his team.
The launching of FIFA Goal Project,
establishment of players’ welfare fund and the resumption of international tournament
after a long break all give a positive signal. But it would take more than that to take
country’s football out of wallow, making up the lost time.
And basketball put the lead on the sports basket. After
remaining in self-imposed claustrophobia, Nepal’s basketball made a big lay-up. It
signed an agreement with the Russian Basketball Federation, which promises to open a broad
new spectrum of help in the future. That should see the game actively emerge beyond the
boundaries of schools and colleges to the national sphere.
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