New negotiation for the stalled work of the cricket academy, infrastructure development including construction of indoor training facilities and strengthening the financial resources to support improved domestic cricket structure will be the top priority for the newly appointed Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN).
Binay Raj Pandey, the CAN president, promised to work on the issued to take the game forward in the committee’s first press conference organized in Kathmandu on October 12.
“The biggest responsibility for CAN is to clarify about the ACC Cricket Academy,” Pandey said. The fate of the ACC Central Academy, announced to be built at Mulpani, Kathmandu is unknown with many believing that the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) has lost interest in it due to internal problems in the country.
The executive committee, which met today at the CAN office, also principally agreed on restructuring domestic cricket structure to ensure that the success of the age-group is carried to the senior level. “At age-group, the players have done wonders, yet the senior team hasn’t been able to perform that well,” Pandey added. “CAN can’t blame players, rather it has the responsibility to seek the answers and we believe that is because of the lack of exposure.”
Adding that the detailed plan will be laid out shortly, Pandey announced a Twenty20 club level tournament with prize-money, national league of two-day format, player registration at district level and a zonal under-13 inter-district school-level tournament. The new CAN’s agenda also includes the introduction of women’s cricket and support for the blind cricket association.
Pandey also promised to make CAN’s financial dealings transparent to gain confidence of the sponsors and others. He also expressed confidence in bringing in sponsors and helping cricketers get jobs. His agenda also includes progressive and fair selection of players, construction of cricket playing facilities around the country and more training for coaches and umpires.
The new president, who had served CAN as secretary and vice-president for more than 39 years in the past, admitted that his team had a lot of challenges but promised a whole-hearted effort to cope with them.
He also claimed that once the new constitution of CAN would be approved by National Sports Council (NSC), he would initiate election – which will be the first-ever in the oldest sports association of the country.
Jeevan Ram Shrestha, the member-secretary of NSC, expressed happiness over new committee’s quick work to bring out their agenda and wished good luck to them. “We have to bring in a new committee in CAN because we believe cricket is the game that can make the nation proud,” he said. “We believe the old committee wasn’t competence enough of meeting that challenge.”