Category Archives: Opinion

India-Australia series is more focused on a few things: Can Sachin Tendulkar score his 100th century? Can Australian captain Michael Clarke lead the Australian team well enough? Can Team India win a series in Australia? Clarke has shown his maturity after 2-0 lead in the series. His dominating knock of 329 not out, his surprising declaration and the wins has made him a hero in Australia.

“If everything goes according to the plan, we might qualify for the World Cup,” said Nepal’s cricket coach Pubudu Dassanayake, in a conversation to yours truly recently, before he was to present his 3-month plan to Nepal’s cricket leaders. The point that the Sri Lankan born coach means well for Cricket Nepal could be denied here. For the line is an optimist one. But the catch, for many, would be the big ‘if’ present there. Many would say: If everything went according to the plan, we would have played previous world cup. For around a decade ago, we were ‘readying’ ourselves to become the next big thing in Asian Cricket. The fact is, not many things went according to the… Read More

Dear Mr. Angbuhang, Congratulations for becoming the first elected president of Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN).

Team Australia has announced its squad to face India in the awaited Boxing day clash against India. Speculations and discussions are seen and heard everywhere from newspapers to people traveling on train, buses and coffee shop, coz its summer and cricket fever is on here at the Aussie land. I was at Canberra to watch the practice match between Cricket Australia Chairman’s 11 and India. I was impressed with Cowan’s batting technique and the way he played against Abhimanyu Mithun , Umesh yadav and yes, Zaheer Khan.  He is surely a key player for Australia this time. But again if he fails then there is a fear that he might lose his spot just like Philip Hughes did, after failing… Read More

The Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) is busy planning for the general assembly and first-ever organizational election in its more than 50 years of history. It will elect a big executive committee full with promises. I believe the first agenda that the newly-elected committee should take up is the review of the ACC T20 Cup and Nepal´s performance.

Nepal qualified for ICC T 20 World Cup Qualifier after entering into semi final of ongoing ACC T 20 Tournament here in Kathmandu. It may be the co incident that after ICC World Cricket League Division 5 held here in February 2010, Nepal again qualified on the basis of net run rate. Lot of people including leading media of the country is not hesitant to call it a Nepal’s luck to qualify for the semi final. However, I have a different view here and totally disagree with those who term our qualification as a matter of luck. First thing we got to remember that net run rate comes in to play only when there are equal points of more number… Read More

Mehboob Alam scored 88 off 41 balls against Saudi Arabia during the league match of the ACC Twenty20 Cup. This was his first half-century, in an of international cricket, after three years. His last half-century was against Norway in May 26, 2008 during the World Cricket League Division 5 in Jersey. His best score in Twenty20 cricket was 45 scored against Qatar in 2007 in Kuwait. Apart from that his knock against Saudi Arabia also brought a galore of records for the national team in Twenty20 cricket. Here are some: Mehboob Alam’s 88 against Saudi Arabia is the first half-century scored by a Nepali player in international Twenty20 cricket. Earlier, Dipendra Chaudhary had scored 49 against Qatar in 2007 and… Read More

A sport holds its thrill in two aspects. First, there is sportsmanship and second, despite knowing the skills and potential of teams and players, the results are almost always different. Sportsmanship is when rules are followed. Players despite putting in their best efforts in every second of their performance, notwithstanding the results, accept the rules and results of the game fairly. If every team starts a brawl after a defeat, the game will hold no value. The fierce enmity on the field for the success is a beloved friendship outside.

Two years ago, Binod Bhandari scored a six off last ball, to win a T20 international for Nepal. That sensational match, against Kuwait, is the only proud moment for Nepal in T20 format. In the ACC T20 match played at Sheikh Jayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi, Nepal could have avoided defeat only through that six off last ball. Binod lofted it atop cover boundary to tie the match. Nepal eventually won it in bowl-out.

These are difficult times to be a cricketer here. Mind you, under normal circumstances it would be busy times with a major championship not too far away (ACC T20 Cup gets underway in a fortnight). Cricketers in Nepal have always considered themselves unlucky. In the beginning days of cricket here, most could not play, given it was only within a reach of richer few. Hence most were unlucky. Till late 90s, Nepal had no participation at international level, so the players were said to be unlucky. When the cricket administration prospered and coffers did not show zero balance, the cricketers said they were unlucky as they did not receive anything out of it.

If you were to visit Tribhuvan University Grounds these days, you could see Nepali cricketers, led by captain Paras Khadka, in practice drills. They are busy in preparation for the SAARC Under-25 Twenty20 Cricket, which Maldives will host. As the boys look sprightly during the net sessions, a rumor that yours truly heard this week comes as a flash. The story is: Recently, President of Cricket Association of Nepal, Binay Raj Pandey called Paras Khadka for a meeting. Paras send a message saying he would meet the new President of CAN, as the change of guards is likely.

‘I love scoring goals for England and playing for England. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t retire – I love playing for my country.’ said David Beckham once, despite knowing he did not feature in the future plan of English football team. Arguably, David Beckham is one of the most celebrated names, if you consider European football post 1990s. Sports psychologists tell you: Pride of playing for the country does make sportsmen run that extra mile, push the barriers a bit further, and makes them feel responsible. Because, in the back of their head, they’re thinking about trying to uplift masses that back them. But can we imagine a situation where a player plays without a country? Impossible you’d… Read More

Hardly had Nepali cricket fans recovered from jolt due to ICC confirmation that the next two World Cups will be 10-team events, they were given another shock. The news of a few former national cricketers moving the Supreme Court against the activities of Cricket Association of Nepal has surprised many, at the same time raised quite a few eyebrows too. Much has already been said by the players and officials from Ireland, the most successful of the associate nations in past two World Cups, along with Scotland, Kenya, Canada and other nations about the associates being shown the exit doors. Whether it moves the money minded ICC or not; Whether it has excluded the ‘world’ from the World Cup or… Read More