Nepal qualified for ICC T 20 World Cup Qualifier after
entering into semi final of ongoing ACC T 20 Tournament here in Kathmandu. It
may be the co incident that after ICC World Cricket League Division 5 held here
in February 2010, Nepal again qualified on the basis of net run rate.
Lot of people including leading media of the country is not
hesitant to call it a Nepal’s luck to qualify for the semi final. However, I
have a different view here and totally disagree with those who term our
qualification as a matter of luck.
First thing we got to remember that net run rate comes in to
play only when there are equal points of more number of top teams than allotted
maximum numbers of team that can actually qualify further from the group. Since,
we shared equal points with UAE and Hong Kong with same number of wins it had
to get down to net run rate to judge two better teams to qualify further as per
the rule of the event. Winning equal number of matches along with Hong Kong and
UAE proves that we were equally good team to qualify further.
Some people also argue that we won our two league matches
with very narrow margin. We won the match against Hong Kong in the last ball
with two wickets and against Kuwait in last over by one run and it was due to
our good luck. In sports it doesn’t matter how big is a winning margin, what
matter the most is winning. An athlete also wins gold medal in hundred miter
sprint by just fraction of seconds and nobody says that he won by luck. This is
because in competitive sports margin of winning or losing is generally very narrow.
Moreover, how many people would have called it our bad luck if we did not get qualified
for semi due to net run rate?
One more thing I would like to reiterate that, after three matches
each of Nepal, UAE and Hong Kong, Nepal was placed at number three in the group
with same points but negative net run rate. In fact Nepal’s net run rate was
much below than UAE and Hong Kong. To qualify further in the event the scenario
was to defeat Saudi Arabia with a very big margin. Under tremendous pressure at
home ground Nepal put up a great show by scoring 183 runs in 20 overs. The task
was not yet completed; Nepal had to bowl Saudi Arabia out below 100 to get its
net run rate positive and decent, which Nepal did.
All these cannot just happen by luck!! Boys had worked very
hard over past one month along with their new coach. Hence, let’s not term our
qualification as “luck” and enjoy our victory and support our team.