President of Cricket Association of Nepal Jai Kumar Nath Shah has requested all the concerned bodies including Ministers’ Council, Nepal Sports Council (NSC) and his colleagues at CAN to unite to bring ACC Central Academy to Nepal forgetting the regional differences.
Shah issued a three-page long press release here today in which he announced the ACC denial of Pokhara as the venue for it. It was the first instance that any CAN official has ‘officially’ informed about it. Shah stated that the decision was made of 30th of June, 2002 in London in the ACC Anuual General Meeting.
Shah stated that as the report presented by the ACC inspection team that included Rumesh Ratnayeke of Sri Lanaka, who is also ACC development officer for the region that includes Nepal, Dr Vaes Paes, umpire Jay Prakash, Roger Binny of India and Rakibul Hasan of Bangladesh, ACC Co-ordination Committee asked ACC Development Committee to shift the location after the meeting held in 8th and 9th of May, 2002.
They mainly cited the political unrest, lack of international airport in Pokhara and absense of cricket clubs as the reasons, Shah stated. However, due to firm stand taken by Nepal in ACC, the idea of not granting the academy to Nepal was not made true but ACC agreed to inspect Kathmandu as the alternative venue, the CAN president informed.
“ACC has hinted preference to Kathmandu for the academy,” the release reads. “I strongly opine that we should accept the decision of ACC on it otherwise Nepal may be the loser.”
Shah also stated that acquiring land in Kathmandu may be the problem but it could be solved.He also said that Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has also promised for the support.
Behind the scene
What’s going on behind the scene? Anyone must have this question in his mind after the press release. Especaily the end of the press release has given a hint of what has been going. The releases ends like
In the end, cricket should be the winner,
the country should be the winner,
forgetting Who, How & Where
the Cricket Academy should be establised in Nepal.
There were rumours that a strong pressure was being extorted on CAN to try to establish the academy in Pokhara. Few days ago, some of the sports journalists of top newspapers made a journey to Pokhara and wrote about the need of academy in Pokhara. Was someone or some groups intentially encouraging journalists to pressure CAN?
It seems that president Shah released his version after the pressure become unbearable to him. Shah also hinted there is someone (may be more) in CAN who is also pressing the matter otherwise he should not have asked the support of his colleagues in a letter pad that belongs to CAN.