Asian Cricket Council (ACC) has informed Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) that ACC Central Academy for Cricket Development could not be built in Pokhara, the western city, due to some contraints, according to a report published by The Kathmandu Post, the national English daily.
ACC earlier announced that the academy would be built in Pokhara few monthes back. But now it has raised some question concerning mainly the lack of international airport. According to CAN, it has urged to find a suitable location for the academy in Kathmandu, the capital city.
“We haved strongly voiced in favour of Pokhara at the June 30 ACC executive committee meeting in London,” the newspaper reporter Suman Malla quotes Jay Kumar Nath Shah, the president of CAN. “Now with ACC asking us to move it to the capital, we cannot do anything but comply with their demand otherwise we might lose the project altogether.”
Rumesh Ratnayake and Dr. Vace Paes, both ACC Development Officers assigned to inspect the site in Nepal have mentioned a few remarks like city’s small airport and lack of strong cricket culture in the surrounding areas in their otherwise positive report.
“It is sad that ACC has declined to accept Pokhara,” Shah is quoted saying. “But the prokect will deinitely stay in Nepal. We’ve trying everything to prounce enough land in the capital.”
It is indeed a sad blow for the Pokhara dwellers who were hoping to revive their tourist business with some attraction added by the academy.