Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) has awarded central contracts to 18 players for the last six months and made a payment to them on Thursday amidst a function in the capital. It was the first time CAN has awarded central contracts to players.
Six month ago, CAN had decided to pay cricketers Rs 5,000 per month for the central contracts.
According to CAN General Secretary Ashok Nath Pyakuryal, the 18 players were in the Nepali national teams during the ACC T20 Cup and ICC World T20 Qualifiers.
“Players, who were in both ACC T20 Cup and ICC World T20 teams received the contract amount for six months and those in only either one of the two teams received three months’ pay,” said Pyakurel. “There will be new contracts for the year 2069. Most probably, we will continue our contracts with the 18 players,” he added.
Paras Khadka, Gyanendra Malla, Prithu Banskota, Mehboob Alam, Pradeep Airee, Sharad Veshwakar, Basant Regmi, Sanjam Regmi, Amrit Bhattarai and Anil Mandal were in both the teams. Subash Khakurel, Binod Bhandari, Rahul BK and Binod Das had played only in the ACC T20 while Pares Lohani, Chandra Saud, Shakti Gauchan and Krishna Karki had replaced them in the ICC World T20 Qualifiers.
National Sports Council Member Secretary Yuvaraj Lama handed over checks to the players.
CAN also awarded Rs 10,000 each to the members of the Nepali team that completed ICC World T20 Qualifiers with seventh position.Nepalwas ranked 16th among the associate and affiliate member countries of the ICC before the tournament.
“It is only a stepping stone to encourage players. We’ll continue the contracts and work to increase the pay,” said Tanka Aangbuhang, CAN president. “Though we had declared to pay cricketers six months ago, we could not do so on time due to some technical reasons,” he added.
Meanwhile, Aangbuhang announced ‘Cricketers Welfare Fund’ with seed money of Rs 1 million. General Secretary Pyakurel announced that CAN will award Rs 10,000 each to the members of the Nepali team that participated in the ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifiers and helpedNepalto qualify in the ICC U-19 World Cup to be held inAustraliain August.
Addressing the function, NSC Member-Secretary Lama said NSC has considered cricket as one of the top priority sport and would help in developing infrastructure for the same in the near future. “The state has to do a lot to develop cricket. Whatever CAN has been doing is commendable but it is not sufficient since cricket has immense scope,” said Lama.
CAN Vice President TB Shah said his organization would do all to provide training, exposure and rewards to cricketers.