Nepal Won’t Host ACC Trophy 2006!
Disheartened! It looks like Asian Cricket Council’s Development Committee had no positive effect of the organization of U-19 ACC Trophy in Nepal (or may be Cricket Association of Nepal had missed something). Look what the ACC official site says: the committee under the Chairmanship of Mohammad Ali Asghar MP has proposed to the Executive Board that the next ACC Trophy be held in Kuala Lumpur in August.
“Malaysia’s climate is well-suited to cricket at that time of the year. They have all the necessary facilities and the infrastructure is there to host a tournament involving 18 countries”, said Sultan Rana, ACC Development Manager.
The thing is still not decided and I really, really hope, there will be some turnaround during executive committee decision.
I missed something in the news but not Nasir Khan. He points out that if 18 nations are competing in the ACC Trophy, then China will play thier first cricket match! That’s intresting. Here is the list of 18 non-Test members of ACC: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bhutan, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand and UAE.
The committee has also made some good recommedations. It has proposed to divide nations in Elite and Plate group for the age-group level tournament to level the competition and start two-day matches for elite level tournaments.
Who will be English captain for U-19 World Cup? Most probably, Moeen Ali as coach Andy Pick backs him. Anyway, England are travelling to Malaysia for 12-day tour to prepare for the hot climate of Sri Lanka and playing two matches agaisnt Malaysia XI.
England fly out to Malaysia on January 18 where they will spend 12 days acclimatising, including two games against a Malaysian XI, before arriving in Colombo on January 31.
And for U-19 World Cup, the cricinfo page has squads of participating countries. And here is the official CricInfo page for the event.
By Ujjwal Acharya who is a professiona journalist and founder of NepalCricket.com which hosts the Nepal Cricket Fan Club site. 