Nepali cricket team, which often faced fitness problems during previous tournaments, is in fine fettle with the Pepsi World Cricket League Division 4 just round the corner.
Earlier, players had to undertake month-long closed-camp training and they were unable to remain fit, but the long spell of training this time around has kept them at top form.
However, monsoon has been disrupting their regular practice for the Division 4 tournament scheduled for August 14 in Italy.
“We are well prepared in terms of fitness, but the rain has been disrupting our practice sessions. However, we still have three weeks and we expect better,” said Roy Luke Dias, the Sri Lankan Coach for Nepal.
Nepali players are busy in the game since last November as they are playing tournaments regularly.
Nepal played the ACC T20 Cup in UAE in November and won the Pepsi World Cricket League Division 5 on home ground in February.
Likewise, they participated in the domestic T20 and One-Day tournaments along with practice matches, which probably has helped a lot in maintaining their fitness.
According to Dias, Nepali players´ victory in the Division 5 tournament at home has boosted their morale. “After the victory, players´ attitude has changed. They now understand their role in the team better,” said Dias.
“Take for instance Mehboob Alam. He knows he has to play a big role for the team. Players are working hard and I can feel this is the best team,” said Dias. Dias said Nepali team is flying to Italy to claim the title while a final berth will be their minimal target.
The winners and the runners-up of the tournament will be promoted to Division 3, which will be held in Hong Kong in January 2011.
The ultimate goal for the six sides is to reach the ICC World Cup Qualifiers in 2013 and compete for a place in the 2015 World Cup to be held in Australia and New Zealand. The bottom two sides will be relegated to Division 5 ready for the next cycle, which will begin after the 2015 World Cup.
The Division 4 tournament scheduled to be held in the Italian province of Bologna will see six teams from five continents to make the tournament a special one. Asian representatives Nepal will take on hosts Italy (Europe), the US and the Cayman Islands (North America), Argentina (South America) and Tanzania (Africa).
All opponents, except for the US and Italy, are new to Nepal. Nepal defeated the US in the final of Division 5 held in Nepal on February 20-29 having lost to the same side in the league round of the tournament. Nepal and the US have qualified for Division 4 as the Division 5 winners and runners-up.
Nepal and the US have had four previous meetings, where Nepal have won 2, lost one while a match was washed out. On the other side, Nepal had pulled off an 88-run victory against Italy in their one and only encounter in 2005.
Though Nepal are aiming for the title, astro-turf (artificial) pitch in Bologna could be their Achilles´ heel. Dias, thus, cited astro-turf as a reason for including six seamers in the team excluding two batsmen.
“Toss does not play a role in astro-turf. It produces uneven bounce and ball sometimes bounces chest-high,” said Dias. “Batsmen should be aware of the bounce and as grounds in Italy are small, bowler should be conscious,” added Dias.
However, captain Paras Khadka opined that they should not bother much about the astro-turf as they are heading to play Division 4 in Italy.
“The US and Singapore had complained about our wickets during Division 5. We will also complain about the wicket but that is not our aim for the tournament,” said Khadka.
“We are going to Italy to secure a final berth and then to fight for the title. We should not only hope to win but should be determined for it,” added Khadka.
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First thing, we all may have our opinions but at the end of the day we want our team to win.
What i was merely saying that CAN should not have made a headstrong decision of just playing with the players born in nepal. We should keep our options open. And it is in our hand to select someone or not. Of course CAN can keep on playing all nepal born players . But if on the way they find a really good player it won’t be bad to snap up a player. Just like Jhon Davidson did it for canada. He could have never played for Australia. But he not only played for canada but also scored fastest century in the world cup. Eion morgan for his love to play test cricket , came to england. Yesterday he made a wonderful hundred and the saved the day for England. All the English supporters were applauding. I believe an average English supporter loves England as much as we Love Nepal.
But currently it is better to concentrate on our teams in Italy. Our team should qualify for the WCL 3 . There is only one team i think that is better than us and that is USA with most of the west indian players.
Having said that we must avoid losing SEMI FINAL. That is the worst we can do. Last time around we lost to afganistan and that was very painful.
Looking at the teams,
USA, Cayman Islands, Argentina, Italy and Tanzenia. I think we have a good enough team to qualify for next league. But we shouldn’t be complacent.
Nepal’s fixture, (all the time is about 12 AM GMT)
Nepal vs USA 14 August
Nepal vs Italy 15 August
Nepal vs Tanzannia 17 August
Nepal vs Argentina 18 August
Nepal vs Cayman Island 20 August
I don’t who makes these fixtures. But it is ridiculous for a team to play 5 one day matches in seven days
By the way have you seen the website of CAN. It is embrassing. No update, nothing. Probably shows who is leading our organisation. May be designer of this webstie should also design and update that website .
http://www.cricketnepal.org/index.html
Also I happen to read CAN ordered Astro Turf recently about 25 th of July. The players will play in similar turf in Italy. Although the move is commendable, but why so late? We all knew we would play in artifitial turf in Italy 5-6 months earlier. I request CAN for a more prompt decision and don’t leave it too late.
What Nepalese players lacks is exposure.They struggle against quality pace attack because there isn’t any bowler in Nepal that exceeds 145kph. They aren’t used with this. And other thing is we couldn’t hold our top players like kaniskh chaugain, bardan chalise, raju khadka etc. Even we were on verge of loosing our most talented maheboob alam at some time. My fren paras, our captain at the moment, was also trying for abroad studies at some point. We want nothing but an environment which players can live by playing and some infrastructure. That will do. Now our future lies in the likes of prithu banskota and pradip aire. The raju khadka product, nischal pandey, is also doing well. What we need is to keep hold of these players. Now what we need is players like ashraful, shakhb al hasan, m. nabi to born in this himalayan soil and hope that day isn’t so far. We fans should also need to support our team by going to the stadium from very first stage of every tournaments held in Nepal instead of reserving for the final day. I haven’t missed any Nepalese game (all age group and senior level) from 5 years even when my final exam was running. I ran to the stadiums with the Nepalese flag immidiately after submitting my paper. All talk big but I have been nearly alone at some group stage matches.
Dear All the Nepali Fan club
Its so productive to read the constructive criticisms, converns and of course plenty of admirations from around the world for Nepali Cricket.
Recently we organised Beach Cricket Festival 2010 to promote Cricket tourism domestically and brough 32 teams altogether from various bsckgrouunds like government sectors, private groups, Humar Rights, UN etc..Do enjoy the coverage below by the http://www.cricinfo.com . Now we getting more response from abroad to participate. In continuation to this we plan to launch better events at Professional level. For sure we need more league tournaments to improve and cricket need to commericialise in Nepal Inshallah..
http://blogs.cricinfo.com/btw/archives/2010/04/beach_cricket_i.php
We shall update you more later,
Cheers!
I am completely in favour of adding couple of foreign players, not just in national squad but also in our domestic senior teams.
Lets look at the squad of any team participating in WCL Div 4. No single team is completed without Mohamed of Pakistan or Patel of India. It is not illegal, lets do it by book. The ICC states they only need 2 players born in the same country in the whole playing 11.
Lets ask our pathetic CAN to introduce a new rule stating every region can have up to 3 foreign player in their playing 11. Make them play the domestic game and let them qualify in 2 years. Indian players can qualify to play Nepal with out any qualification due to the open visa rules. Lets do it in a organised way. Once they raise the game at our domestic level, lets bring them in national squad. Make a policy of maximum of 2 or 3 non citizen in the team. (There is already Sarad Veswakar, he is still not a Nepalese Citizen) Nothing is wrong in that. This does not harm anyone or decreases our national pride. In contrast, this will raise our game and brings success. Remember the wise saying in “Divyoupadesh” : itihaas jitne yodha haru ko ghoda ho ” No body will praise us for sticking to home grown and taunt the winner for importing players.
Do you guys think rest of the world believe that our squad is filled with home grown talent? They all think Nepalese look like the Chinese and is full of Buddhist. They all believe that most of the players (Das, Alam, Choudhary, Pandey) are foreign recruit. Thanks to the common surname they have with some of Indian and Pakistani players.
The moral here is use every piece of rule to rule others. It is legal and everyone does it, why should we not ?
Hey! u cricket lover plz just know da right meaning of “DivyaUpadesh” wat gr8 King Prithvi narayan Shah wanted 2 say….He totally hated da foreginer 2 cum in Nepal….We still dont wanna any foreginer 2 play 4 Nepal..It could b on dose case wat Sujan has already described 4 u….( Alam, Das, Chaudhary not choudhary, Pandey) dey all cums in 4 jaat 36 burna…If dey know about Nepal dey wont say so…We cant blame any country abt dey r playing wid foreginers aswell. Dat’s dere decision…we dont ever wanna know abt da west Indians playing in 4 US or bla bla…We just wanna play good cricket and win every matches as many as we can…Even though it’s a game of uncertain any thing can happen…But we r da favourites of dis tournament every1 knows abt dat…
We all lun Nepalese cricket, so we must wish our team 2 win who ever r playing 4 Nepal, dey perform well..We all r happy wid dem…It’s better 2 talk +ve instead og talking unnecessary things like Foreign inclusion bla bla coz we hav just few days 4 da match…
best of luck Nepal we r no less dan Afghanistan just da matter of some match difference we hav 2 make it now like Afghanistan already made it 4 ODI status n we hav 2 play worldcup…
I totally object!!! Cricket in Nepal is based on the patriotism, and I don’t believe any foreign player can play with same patriotic feeling as our own players do. However, I will accept those players, who if not born in Nepal, but has connection in Nepal in some way. I have no problem with those players who are born in England from the Nepalese parents.
Ok, so Afghanistan is taking another step ahead for development of their cricket- by getting a betting coach Rashid Latif from Pakistan.
http://www.asiancricket.org/index.php/news/july-2010/1818
I hope cricket policymakers in Nepal will learn some from it.
The discussions here about the foreign players have no or very little relation with our country’s real situation. The main problem is not abt talent but abt the MONEY. Who will give the money if we call foreign players here to play. We have no single stadium here to play. Only one ground ( foreigners say it is of low quality pitches) we have. So mates dont do big talks. If you CAN make a fund, collect money and start to facilitate the quality players who are near to drop the PLAYING LIFE due to lack of money and EMPTY STOMACH.
I dont’ think the overseas players playing for uae, hong kong, singapore etc are earning too much. Playing an international match is already an enough incentive for many players to play. They don’t play for money. If some good player plays in domestic league in India ( with no chance to play for india) will grab a chance to play for Nepal. Those players can continue to play in india when they are not playing for Nepal.
Having said that I don’t say we should build our team full of foreigners. I am just against the decision of CAN not to play foreign players at all. Ok we will continue to play with our own born players. But by any chance we get a really good players which will lift our profile, why not grab him. That’s why i think CAN should keep its options open. Although the crux of the team will still be nepalese.
This is sports. Winning is everyting. And getting overseas players is not illegal. It is not like taking drugs or fixing match. It is perfectly legitimate way to strengthen your team.
What kind of patrotism you all guys are talking about. We threw all our honesty the day we threw stones at US players and qualified in the WCL 4 through backdoor. WE didn’t cared about proper conduct then. WE ONLY CARED ABOUT WINNING THEN. Can we say to singapore who were out …. ” Dear singapore, you deserved to qualify for the wcl 4, we are ready to play in wcl 5 for you” NO. Winning is everything.
History remembers winners.
I totally agree with what knight have said here.
Its not match fixing or drug taking nor is it playing over-aged player in age group… which we did in the past. This is legal…. a legitimate way. Lets do it in moderation without effecting our great youth system. This is only do good for the national team.
No one in the country will lament any win caused by a player regardless of who he is. The result win be “NEPAL WINS’. That what matters !!!!
Singaopre, Malayasia consists of foreign player our guys r doing better dan dem .. Afterall why we need foreign inclusion.. I think it’s da waste of time 2 tlak 2 guys like CL and Knight very very narro thinkings n every time da same stupid topic..Instead dey also know da match is not 2 far….
We got time after WCL 4 2 talk abt dis topic..I recon dis is not da right time 2 talk abt all dese…
Knight u asked all what kind of patroism u are talking about? After this all, I want to ask the same question to you. Will u answer me? Why are u having problems with all a team of 11 nepali players? Why are you so kneen to include foreign players? If you keep talking the same way, you may loose the pride of saying a Nepali fan. Most of here, who call themself fans, support them in sites n fourms, but in stadiums i have spent with less than 20 many times.. So I hope you are not among them. Big talk is not enough for development of cricket..
Nirajan…. you dont have a shit about Nepalese history !! Prithivi Narayan Shah was in favour of bringing foreigner into the country. If you remember the two episodes… where he brough two Muslims and one christian padari . To make a great nation you should be inclusive… that was his thought… A lesson in history for you my boy !!
Subodh … carrying flag at every match may make you more patriotic but that does not makes me less patriotic…. i love my country as much as you do.. i do not need to carry flag all time…. serving the nation in any way you can is what i believe is patriotism
Inclusion /non-inclusion…. i think its getting more personal…. lets stop it here
Hey! cricket Lover,It’s unnecessary 2 talk 2 guys wid dangerous lit knowledge…Just seeing up u made a blunder about my name How could u understand da history…
It’s rubbish 2 talk like dat bring ur evry shits 2 play 4 Nepal….U will win not our Nepal…..
Now stop this topics. it’s enough to talk about this. I know that knight & c. lover is same person. No one support yr idea that’s why u made another fake person c . lover. This is south asia not a europe. we never think about for’n player to include in our team. Better sollution is our player should go to play in india, srilanka or bangladesh club. But first of all Can need to manage this .
CAN just brought a astro turf 1 week bfore the departure of team!
all teams of div 4 have anounced team and as usual USA team is as West indies rejects XI n italy r full of srilankans so they will b named as srilanka rejects XI!
if u include the foreign players natinal team will b called as rejected XI.
pakistan n afganisthan border r open, many refugee who stayed in pakistan r playing for afganistan. but is there proof that all are real refugeee MR Khusal, I may b wrong. wat we have heard is that due to open border n lack of identity cards pakistinis r playing for afganis, plz let us b clear
div 3 is going to b organised in china or hongkong?
Last thursday, Can brought astro- turf. Now our players is gonna practice only 1 week on that new astro- turf. This is one of the prove that How much CAN is serious about Nepali cricket & wcl
I know that knight & c. lover is same person.
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Just what your deluded mind thinks. You can’t believe that there may be persons who actually thinks alike. Or should i say all the person’s name and say they are the same?
And who is talking about rejects X1. we are just talking about making an open policy so that if we happen to find a very good player we can grab them. There is nothing wrong in having one or two players to strengthen your team.
By the way do you call England national team as South Africa Rejects X1.
Talking about how serious CAN is about nepali cricket, you just have to go and see their official website.
Knight, u know Can never serious about nepali cricket. That’s why they brought new astro- turf so late. Just 1 week practice (new astro-turf) is not enough for our team.
Good website.
Carrying a flag always don’t make you patriotic re…
U guys don have time to go to the stadiums to support your teams but u have a hell of time to post a 3 page article.. If you don’t go to support then you dont deserve to criticize.. We love our team and if u love to have foreign players in ur team, go and find an India reject XI team and support them.. You don’t deserve to be under sun and moon flag..
Subodh
I absolutely support ur thought man. Knight said what he had to say but he should understand that how many of us share the same thoughts. He doesnt want to accept the fact that he is in minority, so stubborn man.Knight now we all know what u saying and we dont like what u talking about. will u pls stop writing and even if u comment can u write something different.I know u have all right to write how much u want because we live in the world of democracy but we r fed up reading ur comments. U look like a good guy.,hope u understand what i am saying.
JAY NAYA NEPAL