Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) has been preparing infrastructure development programs as Asian Cricket Council (ACC) allocated more than $200,000 grant to Nepal from its Asia Cup Fund.
“ACC has allocated the grant but to receive it we should send our program details to them and they have to approve the programs,” said CAN General Secretary Ashok Nath Pyakuryal. “In a process to receive the grant, we are preparing detail programs these days and we’ll send it to ACC within a month,” he added.
According to Pyakuryal, the ACC grant will mainly be used in infrastructures development. “We are preparing programs so as to use the ACC grant in upgrading Mulpani Cricket Ground and Bhairahawa Cricket Ground as well as for constructing pavilion in Pokhara Ground,” informed Pyakuryal. “We have some other projects too but every project needs approval from ACC,” he added.
International Cricket Council (ICC) has also announced to provide a high performance grant to Nepal to make preparations for the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifiers. As per the 2013 ICC Development Funding Policy, Nepal is to receive $175,000. ICC will distribute the amount to its affiliate and associate member nations within rank nine to 12, while the top eight ranked affiliate and associate member nations will get $ 350,000.
“The ICC grant is strictly for the preparation of World Cup Qualifiers and we’ll use it for the tours and training camps of national team and the team members,” said Pyakuryal. “For receiving this grant also we have to submit our programs to ICC and get approval,” he added.
CAN President Tanka Angbuhang and General Secretary Pyakuryal are to attend ICC General Assembly next week in London and discuss with ICC officials on development issues in the sideline meetings.
Sri Lanka tour
CAN has been planning a Sri Lanka tour for the national cricket team, which is to play ACC Emerging Teams Cup in Singapore from August 17 to 25, World T20 Qualifiers in the UAE in November and Cricket World Cup Qualifiers in New Zealand in January, 2014.
“We are planning a foreign tour for the national team by the end of July or early August. For 99 percent, we’ll tour to Sri Lanka. However, it is yet to be declared officially,” said Pyakuryal.
Training Camp
According to General Secretary Pyakuryal, CAN has been planning to call players into training camp for the national team by the third week of July. “We’ll call players into the camp 10 days or a week ahead of the foreign tour as we hope the rainy season will end by then,” said Pyakuryal. “Since we have short period for camp before the foreign tour, we’ll shortlist around 20 players and call them into the camp,” he added.
Pyakuryal said that if nothing goes wrong, Nepali team would go to Singapore to play the ACC Emerging Teams Cup from Sri Lanka.
Nepal is to play against U-23 teams of India and Pakistan in the group stage of Emerging Teams Cup along side the Afghanistan national team. The top three teams of the ACC Trophy Elite — Nepal, the UAE and Afghanistan — and host Singapore are given chance to compete against the U-23 teams of Asian Test nations — India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.