The Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) is busy planning for the general assembly and first-ever organizational election in its more than 50 years of history. It will elect a big executive committee full with promises.
I believe the first agenda that the newly-elected committee should take up is the review of the ACC T20 Cup and Nepal´s performance.
As a host, apart from a few minutes´ crowd trouble during Nepal-UAE match, the tournament was successful. No complaints from the teams and thousands of spectators even in matches not involving Nepal should be a matter of great pride for the country, the board and the game. The issue of crowd trouble needs a thorough review since it happened for the second time and CAN should work out a detailed plan on its own to ensure such incidents do not occur in future.
Nepal´s performance, though the best in Twenty20 so far, is a matter of concern for all – it was not the defeats, rather the way the team played. Frankly, Nepal looked ordinary – its batting, fielding and even bowling was below-par. The promises of new coach Pubudu Dassanayake for a different kind of cricket seemed void on the ground.
The truth is Dassanayake hadn´t had enough time to evaluate players before the tournament. I am among the believers that after a long stint with cricket-book coach Roy Dias, we need ´performance coach´ like Dassanayake. The capacity of the new coach will take at least a couple of more tournaments to be seen as the team is still in transition.
But CAN should nevertheless develop a mechanism to evaluate the coach and the players and make them accountable for the performance. Reviewing the ACC T20 Cup, CAN should ask Dassanayake, manager Rajesh KC and captain Paras Khadka to submit reports evaluating the team´s performance including what was good and what went wrong as well as what can be done to improve. It´s useful in three ways.
First, it makes them responsible and accountable for what they do, second, it gives an idea what CAN could do, and third, it´s a record of the history. Report should be made mandatory after each tournament – no matter even if the team wins it.
CAN sould also ask a few questions on issues arising during the tournament from both coach and captain. For example, Dassanayake should be asked about his priority and future use of unorthodox shots in the context that despite repeated attempts, Nepali batsmen failed to use that for good.
Similarly, manager KC and captain Khadka should be asked why pacer Amrit Bhattarai chose to stay back in the hotel while the team was playing and why Khadka and a few players skipped the presentation ceremonies.
For the success of the team, the mantra for the sports association should be: Give them (coach and players) any logical facilities they ask for and ask them questions about their performance.
(As published in Republica)