Opportunities and Challenges for Nepali Cricket team after Division 3

Nepal has once again reached for the ICC division League 2 beating Malaysia in its last game in Division 3. Nepal beat Uganda by 62 runs in the game to choose who would be crowned as the ICC Division 3 winner. Nepal has won the tournament in a successive year. With this achievement Nepal will play the Division 2 in 2015 January 15 to 27 which will be played in Namabia.

In its final match Nepal won the toss and elected to bat first in Malaysia’s Kinrara Academy. Nepal lost all wickets in 49.5 overs and presented Uganda with 224 runs target. In process of meeting the target Uganda lost its all wickets and was able to score 161 runs and lost all wickets in 44.1 overs. With this win Nepal paid the revenge of lost which they had faced in group stage match where Nepal lost to Uganda with 20 runs.

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Nepalese players celebrating their victory against Uganda in Division 3 photo courtesy: ICC

In the final match Nepali Cricket Team’s starting batsmen had played a great role in setting target of 224 runs. Nepal’s initial order batsmen Gyanendra Malla, Naresh Budayair, Sagar pun each of them contributed a half century runs to set the score. In the match Sagar Pun scored 64 runs, Naresh Budayair scored 51 runs and Gyanendra Malla scored 56 runs. Nepal lost its last 6 wickets for 15 runs.

In the division 2 game which will be held in Namabia, 6 countries will be participating in the Tournament. Nepal along with Canada, Uganda, Netherlands, Kenya and Namabia will play for the tournament. Nepali Cricket Team and Uganda had clashed with each other in the finals of 2013 Division 3 final where Nepal had won the match and earned the Division 3 title reaching in the Division 2 and played for the 2015 ICC one day World cup Qualifiers which was held in New Zealand. In that tournament Nepal and Uganda were the bottom teams being in the 9^th and 10^th spot thus falling to Division 3 again.

What are the opportunities and challenges for Nepali Cricket Team??

Opportunities for Nepali Cricket Team:

With being the Division 3 holders and reaching for the Division 2, Nepal will get the opportunity to play for the Inter-continental cup if they will be able to secure the top 2 spot in the Division 2 tournament. Similarly, Nepal will also be able to participate in 50 overs Non-test playing ICC world Cricket league championship. ICC will provide an opportunity for the ICC inter- continental cup winner to qualify for the test matches.

Challenges of Nepali Cricket team:

Success is not permanent. To achieve a success may be easy but most hard part of it is to retain or maintain it. Same is the case with the Nepali Cricket Team. Has Nepal the proper infrastructure to play the games, what about the technical equipment for the training? How much exposure are they getting in the International Arena? Have they got enough opportunity to play domestic games? What about the financial Aid they are getting? Can they keep up their performance as a professional.

These are the factors that will haunt Nepali Cricket Team’s success. The governing body of Cricket of Nepal – Cricket Association ofNepal(CAN) along with the government of Nepal must formulate enough policy and start addressing these challenges to maintain the success and achieve the targeted opportunities in future.