Sports can give you fame in a minute! That’s what some people believe. Be in the big time and do some extraordinary, you will be in no time famous.
The U-15 cricket team did the both. It went to play U-15 Asia Cup in UAE and reached the semifinal of the tournament thwarting Bangladesh on the way.
Six wins in eight matches is laudable given to that both the defeat come from the giants – India and Pakistan and a win was against another giant.
The team played convincingly and with confident, that what team manager Tarak Mani Dixit expressed. Despite being the first timer in U-15 outings, the young guns of the ‘fast-track’ countries showed the cricketing world what talent has been hiding in the lap of Himalayas.
More praise-worth point lies in the defeats. Both the defeats were marginal – by 27 runs and at least at a stage of time, Nepal scared the tough opponents with much experience and exposer. If we only have had experience! Team coach Roy Dias, whose inspiration and work was a greater part of the magic in the successful year believes that experience of match play could have given us victory in at least a match among them.
The kingdom is leading the cricket in the Asian region – let’s forget test-nations for a few minutes. And the dominance of Nepali names in Asian team selected after the tournament proves that. Raj Shrestha will lead the dream-team with other five Nepalese in the 14-member squad.
The patient of Pawan Das and, a big name, Sarad Veshwakar, fire-cracking shots of Bantu Bataju, the ‘turn-them’ (turn the batsman to the way he has entered the crease) bowling of Raj Shrestha, Deepak Shrestha and Irfan Siddique mixed along with the cricket knowledge of cool Dias have surely given us the success.
The success of the country that entered the international cricket just six years ago is astonishing. The talent of the players (that should be talent rather than skills as there is not much platform for them to learn and experience cricket other than with some local play) is giving us what we hoped.
We are happy and proud. Lets salute the U-15 guys for their outstanding performance as they have made the nation proud.