Category Archives: International

Nepal’s captain Paras Khadka believed his team will come up with flying colors in the ACC Twenty20 Cup that starting on the day of Fagu Purnima, the festival of colors. “We have prepared best and we are at very high level of confidence,” Paras said. “We want to start in the winning note and continue winning.” Nepal is playing Maldives, a team that had never defeated Nepal in any form and level, on Wednesday at the TU Cricket Ground. In the only T20 cricket played between the teams, Nepal defeated Maldives by 75 runs in the Asian Games, Gongzhou. “Strength is adaptation” When asked about strength of Nepali team, Paras said: “adaptiveness”. “Our training in Pokhara was good, we trained… Read More

Oman relieved Nepal out of misery at the ACC T20 Cup, beating them by 2 runs to emerge as the winner of third-place play-off, at the Tribhuvan University Ground in Kathmandu. Generally, the third place play-off is a drab affair, and is taken as the competition to find who is worse of the two losing semi-finalists. But it could have been an opportunity for Nepali team to stamp some authority. However, the hosts failed to do that. This was also the first match that Roy Dias was fielding a side against the team he had coached earlier. Not many have forgotten that Dias was Nepal coach and has been out of the country for only a year, after staying with… Read More

The hosts, Nepal, were reduced to mere spectators as Afghanistan juggernaut rolled at the ACC T20 Cup semi-finals, Friday morning. The match drew the largest number of spectators of the championship, but they had to come back empty-handed on the day their favorite team looked ordinary. The match was a complete contrast to the one Nepal played against Saudi Arabia, where batting clicked and bowling was sharp. It was as if the hosts had run out of steam. The match was reduced to 16-over-a-side affair, as the haze and dew made it difficult to start the match on time. Nepali openers looked out of sorts against lively pace from Afghan bowlers. Hamid Hasan, the pacer from Afghanistan, bowler 4-over quota… Read More

Finally Nepal came good with both bat and ball to thrash hapless Saudi Arabia by 95 runs in its last league match of the ACC Twenty20 Cup. Nepali team entered the field under some pressure, having scraped through to two tight wins, off last ball in two matches and lost one. The batting needed to fire, and win the match by a good margin, to have some chance to qualify for the semis.

After a huge-margin win over Saudi Arabia, Nepal would have qualified for semifinal had Kuwait defeated Hong Kong or taken the match until the 16.4 overs in second innings. However, Hong Kong chased 131-run target in 14.5 overs and qualified for the semifinals as well as the Twenty20 World Cup Qualifiers.

Defending champion Afghanistan, host Nepal, the UAE and Malaysia are taken as the semifinal-favorites in the ACC Twenty20 Cup, which kicks off Saturday at the TU Cricket Ground, Kirtipur. However, writing-off Hong Kong and Oman would be injustice too. Saudi Arabia is the lowest profile team among the 10 participants as they arrived in Kathmandu without their chief coach and a coach. Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Development Officer Ikbal Sikander took the charge of Saudi Arabia for this tournament recently and said that none of the team could be taken lightly in the T-20 format of the cricket. “Any team taken as underdog has to lose nothing and it has no pressure. Pressure always comes to favorites,” said Sikander, who… Read More

As Afghanistan batsmen were hitting big shots during their practice session at the TU Cricket Ground on Tuesday morning, their coach Dawlat Ahmadzai said they are in Kathmandu to defend the ACC Twenty20 title. “We are the champions and we´ll defend the title,” said a confident Ahmadzai.

Senior cricketer Shakti Gauchan and wicket-keeper Mahesh Chhetri have been dropped from the ACC Twenty20 Cup. In a surprising decision, the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) left out Gauchan, who had been awarded the Best Bowler in the National T20 event, while announcing the team for the ACC event.

When Pubudu Dassanayake arrived in Kathmandu on September 29, he had a successful history of guiding Canada into ICC World Cup 2011 but he faced a similar challenge of taking charge of Nepali national cricket team as he was replacing Sri Lankan veteran Roy Luke Dias. Probably, realizing the challenges, the soft speaken Sri-Lanka born Canadian made a cautious comment about his target.

The Asian Cricket Council (ACC) on Thursday revised the groupings and fixtures for the ACC Twenty20 Cup to be held in Kathmandu in December. After the revision, Nepal is now pitted in Group B along with Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Group A consists of Afghanistan, Malaysia, Bhutan, Oman and the Maldives.

The newly appointed Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) expressed commitment to conduct ACC Twenty20 Cup successfully and hold the election within two months. “We want to express full commitment to two mandates given to us – the election and the ACC T20 Cup, within two months,” CAN president Tanka Aanbuhang said in his first appearance to the press.

Coach Pubudu Dassanayake will field a blend of young and senior players in the upcoming ACC Twenty20 Cup. After retuning from his first assignment at the SAARC Under-25 Twenty20 Cup, the coach said he hoped to fill the weaknesses of the team with the experience of the senior players in the upcoming event.

Nepal will open the ACC Twenty20 Cup campaign against Malaysia at the TU Cricket Ground on December 3, according to the fixture released by Asian Cricket Council (ACC). Nepal is grouped along with Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Bhutan and Saudi Arabia for the tournament in Group B. Group A consists of Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Oman, Kuwait and Maldives.