ASIA CUP|NEPALI CRICKET

Nepali Cricket probably getting a move on now.

  As soon as players are getting lot of support from fans and coach Pubundu Dasanayike players like Sharad veshwakar, Vinod das and many other those who were out of form in the recent tournament  are getting a pick up. We are getting to see some fresh performance by old players. It might be the impact of Paras khadka’s departure to Canada, Amrit Bhattrai and Chandra Saud’s getting call from Sri-lanka, similarly Mehboob Alam’s call to America.Not only on players but whole nation is just out and about taking Cricket bat and bowl. The country, like ours where football had a monopoly, its just getting transformed into cricketing nation. I personally being worshipper of the game feel very happy about it.I am not arguing that football has been beaten but I am giving information on the increment of the fan following of cricket in Nepal.

                                                           Although CAN has been very passive, the effort of an individual (BIRAT RAYA) is making cricket go crazy in this beautiful nation. The administrator of a well followed page in the Facebook (Nepali Cricket Fans on Facebook) has acted like an individual institution and has shown to many of our leaders of each and every field that if you are loyal and responsible you can reach where you aim not only by words but also by deeds. His effort has done a lot to the cricketers come across in communication with the local people and upcoming players. He is running an academy informally and is proving himself the best person to promote cricket in Nepal and efforts from others all supporters are also respectful.  ICC had once announced that if our country would make Mulpani stadium within the given deadline then we could even organize major tournaments, but it all ended rapidly as a sweet dream. Not only men but women cricket has done themselves a world of good being crowned 3 times in a row as ACC ELITE CUP winners. They too are changing fate of cricket in this sports crazy nation.

Rise of Nepal

                        Moving forward we should look into the major tournament that is knocking at the door. First of all Asia cup in which we are lined up with the Asian giants India & Pakistan. They have been playing IPL and other major tournaments to be prepared to beat some major teams but we can’t just wait to be beaten, in fact we should prepare our self mentally and physically that in any game any team can be beaten depending how positively and enthusiastically you take the game. Its only due to positive mindset teams like Australia and Sri lanka were beaten by sides like Kenya who where then thought weaker  sides in comparisons to the opponents. Kenya then went to the semi-final stage of Cricket World Cup 2003.Likewise Bangladesh proved recently that good batting, fielding and Bowling can beat the finalists of recently held world cup. Though they merely lost the Asia cup by 3 runs they showed that courage and caliber leads to the door of victory. Similarly Nepal has a lot of young talent. They can make a mark and set themselves in the international stage if they do well here in the Asia cup. They must prove themselves to be the descendent of the fighters. If our top order put a good show in the batting department then you can be sure that match would be pulled up by our fielders and bowlers. Then the other major series is the U-19 world cup in Australia and New-Zealand. The challenge there would be the pace and bounce and swing in the air. We need to battle hard to make a mark there too. Our batsman need to adapt the surrounding and conditions fast. Hence a huge challenge and struggle is coming in the upcoming days which would probably take cricket to new direction and hopefully mother Nepal would see herself in the biggest front pages to have ever imagined.They have got really big match this year and this year would judge the real talent of Nepalese cricket. Below are some of the jaint matches Nepal will play this year.

This year, Nepal U-19 will play with 5 World's Cricket Giants.
June 21 - Nepal VS India (Asia Cup)
June 26 - Nepal VS Pakistan (Asia Cup)
August 8 - Nepal VS New Zealand (WorldCup, Warm-up)
August 13 - Nepal vs Australia (World Cup)
August 16 - Nepal vs England (World Cup)
Hope to see Nepal defeating at least 2 nations.

Let us just see our squad and compare it with the giants of Asia, Pakistan and India for the upcoming Asia cup.

Nepalese side                                        Pakistani side
1.Prithu Baskota –(Captain)                                                                   1. Sami Aslam                                               

2.Pradeep Airee -(V.Captain)                                                                2. Imam-ul-Haq

3.Rajesh Pula                                                                                            3. Umar Waheed     

4.Sagar Pun                                                                                              4. Azizullah

5.Naresh budhayer                                                                                   5. Mir Hamza
6.Krishna karki                                                                                          6. Ehsan Adil

7.Avinash Karki                                                                                         7. Salman Afridi - W/k
8.Faijular RehmaKhan                                                                              8. Babar Azam - Captain
9.Bhuwan Karki                                                                                         9. Mohammad Nawaz
10.Hasim Ansari                                                                                       10. Syed Faraz Ali
11.Subhash Khakurel                                                                               11. Akhtar Waheed Kiyani
12.Rahul B.K                                                                                             12. Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq
13.Gopal K.Singh                                                                                     13. Shahid Ilyas
14.Saurav Khanal                                                                                     14. Usman Qadir
15.Ramnaresh Giri                                                                                   15. Syed Saad Ali

Captains

                                                                                                                 
 India side
1.Unmukt Chand (Captain), 
2.Akshdeep Nath (Vice-Captain), 
3.Manan Vohra, 
4.Akhil Herwadkar, 
5.Aparajith Baba, 
6.Vijay Zol, 
7.Sandipan Das, 
8.Vikas Mishra, 
9.Sandeep Sharma, 

10.Rush Kalaria, 
11.Mohsin Sayyed, 
12.Smit Patel, 
13.Harmeet Singh, 
14.Kamal Passi, 
15.Sanju Samson

I am trying you to make comparison of the mentioned players with their detail and stat……as for instance Unmukt Chand captain of India featured in IPL and showed his talent. Chand hit Dale Steyn for four and made his mark in this IPL playing for Delhi with some brisk timing. Similarly Harmeet Singh who featured from Deccan Chargers in their winning year and currently part of Kings XI Punjab might be a big threat to all of our players with tons of experience of sharing time with the legend like Adam Gilchrist and modern giants like David Hussey, Shaun Marsh and experienced Praveen Kumar. Likewise, Nepali players should pull up their socks to match with the standard of these guys. I have read the quote from Sachin Tendulkar “If you dedicate your whole life to cricket as I have done then you will feel the beauty of the game”. Likewise, a big occasion is coming on the 15^th of June, the most successful captain of the current world champion India is arriving to Pashupatinath temple. As per schedule mentioned from Indian embassy Dhoni is going to give some cricketing tips to our players. This might be a good confidence booster to all our players and I find all of our players fortunate to even hear a word from him. This is probably the first time but not the last time. So this visit of Midas of Indian cricket might prove golden moment for the history of Nepali cricket. Let’s hope this visit might boost all of our players before the major tournaments and maybe we could establish our name amongst the well rank teams.

                                                ****BEST OF LUCK NEPAL AND NEPALI TEAM****