Nepal’s ACC Trophy 2006 campaign ended in two disappointing defeats. It was more disappointing not because we lost to two better teams – eventual winners UAE and Afghanistan but because we lost the opportunity to play in the Asia Cup and then in the World Cup Qualifying Series. And, also because Hong Kong, whom the Nepali cricket team convincingly defeated in the league round, reach the final of the event earning the rights to play in both tournaments.
The cricket team had a very promising start that included the first-ever victory against Hong Kong and two-ball victory over newcomers Myanmar. But it flattered in the match that mattered – the semifinal against UAE. Nepal even failed to create challenge for UAE as widely expected.
Nepal began with a convincing six-wicket win against Kuwait and followed up with a 281-run trashing of minnows Bhutan. The big match of the league round was against Hong Kong, a team that had defeated Nepal three times earlier, and it proved to be good for Nepal as the cricketers performed their best for a 87-run win. Myanmar was a starter and it proved weaker than a school sides getting bowled out for 10 runs and Nepal needing only two balls for the 10-wicket victory.
Quarterfinal was a nervous game with the memories of crashing out at the stage in 2004 at the same Bayuemas Oval. Nepal was 2-0 in the ground also losing to Fiji in the WCQS II in 2005 and Bahrain was a good opponent having defeating last year’s finalists Oman. But Nepal came good surviving late slugging to register a 25-run victory. And there ended the good days.
Semifinal was against the three-time champions UAE and everyone was expecting the best match of the event. But it proved lopsided with Nepal scoring only 103 runs and UAE easily getting the target losing just a wicket. The very next day, Afghanistan, who lost to Hong Kong in rain-affected match, proved too strong for Nepal. When Nepal ended the match, Nepal was in a condition of losing the match anyhow and it lost by 64 runs under Duckworth Lewis Method.
Hopes crashed, and pinned the hearts of Nepali cricket fans. But the hopes that we put on our cricket side was the hopes built on the house of cards. It was evident during the tournament. Whereas UAE was the team that had cricketers paid to travel to Malaysia for the tournament and who were playing top-level cricket during last year including the EurAsia Cup held at Abu Dhabi, Nepal was a team of talents without experiences. Nepal was playing the first-ever 50-over match after February 2005, and even the domestic National League hardly saw 50-over matches due to weather.
“Teams like UAE, Hong Kong and Afghanistan came here to utilize whatsoever experiences they have earned in the top-level cricket,” a team member rightly concluded. “But our boys came here to gain the experience.” Truly said because during the semifinal Nepali team was bowled out with 14 over remaining and some of the batsmen throwing their wickets in frustration of not getting runs and in the third-place playoff top-order batsmen getting bewildered when the spin opened the attack. Talent-wise we are better than any other team, but we lack the experience,” captain Binod Das commented in the Tribhuvan International Airport during the teams return.
The age-group teams are purely built on talents thus Nepal had a splendid records but when in comes to senior side, Nepal lacks experience thus fail to match the age-group level’s performance. Lack of international exposure and lack of domestic tournaments is the prime factor. The seniors gets a maximum of 4 matches per year in national league that too most of the time decreased to 40-overs due to weather, not to say anything about the international matches for practice and experience.
The cricketers even lack the financial benefits – we expect them to make money out of their daily allowances. Players miss the college classes and whatsoever jobs they are holding for more than two months of closed-camp during tournaments without any rewards – other than ‘laying for the country feeling’. Raju Basnet had been kicked out of four jobs in last two years all because of this reason. He and other cricketers have continued playing cricket because of their love and passion to the game.
For the last few years, Nepali cricketers and fans have expected something to come from the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) – most of these hopes on the structured domestic events and financial benefits. But CAN has remained mostly as an agency of executor of what ACC or ICC asks to do. They have failed to come up with the vision and strategy for development of the game in the country and only acting as an agency of international participation. In that condition, if a CAN member expressed satisfaction over Nepal’s performance, its not surprising.
My stay with the team for two weeks gave me a chance to understand Nepali cricket and standard more clearly. And what I believe after all this is let’s not hope big from the team (other than a few fortunate games) unless we come up with a structured domestic cricket, financial support for cricketers and visionary strategy to develop cricket of the country.