Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) called in 24 players, including all the 14 members of the team that participated in the ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifiers, for the closed camp training for the ACC U-19 Asia Cup. The closed camp training is scheduled to start from May 15 inKathmandu.
CAN has called 10 players based on the performance of the recently concluded Wai Wai U-19 National Cricket Tournament. Shiva Tandukar, Sushil Kandel, Prajesh Bahadur Singh, Gopal Singh. Binod Lama, Abhishek Jha, Hasim Ansari, Bijay Ghalan, Surendra Chand and Pawan Shrestha are the players selected based on the national tournaments.
Earlier, CAN has given a privilege to the members of the U-19 team, which guided Nepal in the upcoming ICC U-19 World Cup, and all the 14 players were not featured during the national tournaments.
Prithu Banskota, Abinash Karn, Bhuwan Karki, Naresh Budhair, Pradeep Airee, Rahul BK, Rajesh Pulami, Sagar Pun, Subash Khakurel, Subendu Pandey, Faizlur Rehman, Rupesh Srivastav, Krishna Karki and Nischal Pandey are called in directly.
They had guided Nepal to the U-19 World Cup as they had finished on the second position of the ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifiers held in Ireland in July 2011.
The ACC U-19 Asia Cup, the new tournament of the Asian Cricket Council, features Test nations of Asia–India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh– as well as top three teams of the ACC U-19 Elite Cup 2011 –Afghanistan, Nepal and Qatar. Malaysia is included as the host nation.
The ACC U-19 Asia Cup is scheduled to be held in Malaysia from June 23 to July 1.