Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) dropped vastly experienced Shakti Gauchan and Sanjam Regmi from the 14-member squad to represent Nepal in the 16th Asian Games from November 12-27 in Guangzhou, China.
Shakti, Sanjam and Manjeet Shrestha, who traveled with the team to Italy for the ICC World Cricket League Division IV in August, left space for youngster Prithu Baskota, Binod Bhandari and Naresh Budhayer.
This is the first time Prithu has been included in the team while Binod and Naresh had already played for Nepal.
The national selection committee headed by Bijay Sharma finalised the squad.
“We had taken the Asiad as a practice tournament for the World Cricket League Division 3 but we failed to qualify. In this scenario, we thought it would be better to give chance to young players,” said Sharma.
“We have no ICC event in near future and the CAN Technical Committee has given a guideline to pick young players,” informed CAN General Secretary Tanka Paneru. ACC U-19 Elite Cup is scheduled to be held in Thailand in February next year.
The other members of the squad are Paras Khadka (skipper), Gyanendra Malla (Vice-captain), Mahesh Chhetri (wicketkeeper), Sharad Vesawkar, Mehboob Alam, Binod Das, Basanta Regmi, Amrit Bhattarai, Rahul BK, Anil Mandal and Pradeep Airee.