I arrived this morning at Chittagong, the Port City of Bangladesh to watch and Cover ICC World T20. Nepal qualified for the highest level of competitive cricket after defeating Hong Kong in the World T20 Qualifiers played in November, 2013. The win itself was miraculous, as Nepal beat Hong Kong in a thrilling match that went up to the last ball.
Chittagong, which is around 250 kilometers east from capital city Dhaka, is comparatively calm, less crowded than the Bangladeshi capital. After escaping from infamous traffic jam of Dhaka, my focus turned to cricket. Nepal has to play against Hong Kong in the opening group match of the T20 World Cup on Sunday. Stage is all set for the both the teams for a do or die match. Other two teams in the group – Bangladesh, host and test playing nation – and Afghanistan which is emerging as a cricket power house among non test-playing nations are being touted as one of the favorite team to go to the next round. But in T20 cricket anything can happen.
Team Nepal practicing at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Cricket Stadium in Chittagong on the eve of its match against Hong Kong in ICC World Twenty20 2014.
Photo: Bhaskar Gyawali
I arrived at 1 pm ZACS ( Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Cricket Stadium) to collect my accreditation card and attend press meet of both the captains. But due to heavy traffic and confusion between football and cricket stadium, and of course our lack of knowledge of local language, we – me and other sports journalists from Nepal – missed the media briefing. But after persuading ICC media manager Bridget, she allowed us to ask few questions to Nepal skipper Paras Khadka.
Paras seemed calm as ever and not affected by the poor performance in the practice matches. It’s perfectly logical for a skipper to show confidence before high octane match in the mega event. Couldn’t ask what Hong Kong skipper had to say, but I expected it on obvious lines, like – we are playing great cricket, we have defeated Zimbabwe and The Netherlands in practice matches, our boys are playing great cricket and they are in good form, blah..blah…blah.
Nepal has previously defeated Hong Kong time and again but statistics don’t play in the field, you have play better than your opponent to win match. T20 is a format where 3-4 overs can change the outcome of the game.
Poor performance by opening pair and inability to play good fast bowling has been Nepal’s headache for long. This will still be a big question mark here again, and this can oust Nepal from the tournament very early. Another thing that goes against Nepal is that it has not a single charismatic player (batsman, bowler or all-rounder) who can single handedly win the match for his team. Hong Kong has Irfan Ahmed, an explosive opener and a good bowler. This can be the difference between Nepal and Hong Kong. Nepal needs to have strategy to contain Irfan Ahmed, the batsman, and strengthen its batting performance against Irfan Ahmed, the bowler. Both these associate nations are playing big league cricket for the first time, so it would be interesting to see who stays calm enough and plays to potential.
Coach of Nepali cricket team Pubudu Dassanayake has said time and again that T20 is anybody’s game, so don’t write us off, we can stage upset and go to second round. I want to believe Dassanayake’s confidence will be proven right. Hopefully, along with me, other Nepali fans would be rooting the same line.