Nepal’s dream of playing One-Day International (ODI) cricket has been shattered with officials failing miserably on the negotiation front, a senior cricket official confirmed here today.
“Asian Cricket Council (ACC) decided to allow only immediate ACC Trophy finalists to play in the Asia Cup,” said Tarini Bikram Shah, who represented Nepal in the May 11 ACC meeting. “It’s sheer bad luck for Nepal.” The decision means UAE and Oman will compete against India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the coming Asia Cup scheduled for February 2006 in Pakistan.
Nepal had qualified for the Asia Cup after reaching the final of the ACC Trophy in July 2002 in Singapore. It should be recalled that Hong Kong participated in the Asia Cup held in July 2004 in Sri Lanka, as it was the losing finalist of the ACC Trophy 2000. At the time, ACC said that since it was gave exposure to a developing cricket playing nation, it would be unfair to stop Hong Kong from getting international exposure.
But the issue was raised again and Nepal lost the battle this time even though CAN President Jai Kumar Nath Shah was attending the meetings. According to sources, the issue was raised in the ACC meeting in August 1, 2004 in Sri Lanka, and was probably agreed upon in the January 31, 2005 meeting in Dubai. On both occasions, president Shah attended the meeting [as ACC vice-president].
“I debated about Nepal’s qualification and made reference to Nepal’s performances including the 172-run win against UAE in the meeting,” CAN vice-president TB Shah told the Post. “They were impressed and they felt the change in policy would come as a big disappointment for us.” But since the issue was already tabled and worked out, there was nothing that could be done at the recent meeting.
“They said that since 1998, there have been different runners-up in the ACC Trophy which showed that no country has been performing consistently well except winner UAE,” Shah added. “So they wanted immediate finalists to play because they are in their best form.”
The news left Nepal’s national team captain Binod Das speechless. “It’s disappointing, we had dreams of playing against India and Pakistan, we qualified for that and waited for three years,” reacted Das, who was a part of the team that played in the 2002 final.
“If Hong Kong were let in to play after four years, why this discrimination only against Nepal?”
As perplexed as any well wisher of Nepali cricket by the news, one CAN official, who requested not to be identified, told the Post that members were kept in the dark about previous meetings.
“It’s real bad diplomacy on the part of our representatives,” he said.