Nepal Cricket- Rising from the shakes and quakes

Nepal Cricket- Rising from the shakes and quakes: Times have changed and I don’t visit my native village in Bihar that often nowadays, but I remember when I was a young kid and we had a summer break, I used to spend my entire vacation with my family at my naani-ghar (maternal grand-mother’s home). We had a small black and white TV which got surrounded by children across the village whenever there was a movie aired on Doordarshan or Nepal Television. Yes, the antenna at the roof-top somehow caught the signals of the Nepali channel and on every Saturday afternoon, we used to watch Bollywood movies aired on the channel.

And that is exactly the way our neighbors across the border followed our cricket. The vast popularity of the game in India started to have an impact upon the public in Nepal. It might have come a bit later for the nation after four of the other Asian nations – India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have already been at the international arena for quite some time, but that is understandable for a country that is mainly an isolated and agrarian society and much of whose GDP is dependent on the remittances of foreign workers.

And then, nature took its toll on it some 70 days back. The heavy destruction caused by the earthquake has made the lives of the country topsy-turvy, but salute to the spirit of the Nepal cricket team, they are here again. Rising from the shake-ups of the quakes they are ready to foray into the international circuit again. Their next mission is the 2016 T20 world cup qualification and that by no means is over-ambitious as they have managed to do the same in 2014. Last time when they did that, Nepal took the whole cricketing world by surprise. But that was just a mere reward for their talent, hard-work, grit and determination it seems.

The Nepal Cricket team is a member of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) which is a conglomerate of all the non-test playing nations and they have been holding high ranks in it by their performances in different tournaments. But the best out of them came in the year 2014. Though they couldn’t do well in the 2015 world-cup qualifiers, they sneaked in a place in the world T20 2014 and managed to be on 3^rd place in their group clinching two victories against Hong Kong & Afghanistan and that gave them the T20I status. Not only this, Nepal has also won two coveted championships highly valuable for any affiliate member – the ACC Under-16 Premier League and the Pepsi ICC World Cricket Division League 3.

The speciality that makes them one distinguished team is unlike many other full members, associates and affiliates, where the teams are largely made up of expatriates, Nepal’s national team constitutes of indigenous players who have usually made a place for them in the team rising through the ranks, playing age-group cricket. They were also the only team to not concede more than 140 runs in any match in the 2014 T20 World Cup and the team saw its bowling to be utterly disciplined with none of the bowlers bowling a single wide or no-ball.

Nepal Cricket is a symbolism for a dream that the country sees through them. The cricketers have become their country’s favourite heroes and this time in the qualifiers of the World T20, 2016 they need to secure a place in the top 6 out of 14 participating teams to get them going again. And to tell you the truth, they have started with a bang – in their first match against USA on 10^th July, they have defeated the opponents by 6 wickets with 2 balls to spare. Captain cool Paras Khadka did well with both bat and ball scoring 21* in 17 balls and pulling off 3 overs for just 10 runs. The promising bowler Shakti Gauchan claimed 3 wickets for 16 runs what shows to be a promising start for him in this tournament. But as Khadka rightly points out – “It is a big responsibility for us to see that our fans don’t get disappointed”. Nepal will have to give it their best shot this time, so as to give their fans a reason to smile.

Former Sri Lankan cricketer Pubudu Dassanayake, who has in past also worked with Canadian cricket team, has been coaching the team since 2011 and under his tenure; the team has started to do wonderfully good. He realises the love the countrymen show towards the game and their heroes. Dassanayake said – “Nepal plays, 20,000 turn up. In Canada you couldn’t get 100 to watch. Give a bat to a 10-year-old in Nepal; he would know forward and backward defence straight off”. The grounds get filled and people occupy every nook and corner, a lot of them even stand there watching their men play for the respect.

The team left for Dharamsala a fortnight after the massive destruction; and amidst scenic mountains, trained themselves in the five-star cricket facilities the place had to offer. The team has started its run for the title in Belfast where their successful campaign would mean a place for them in the next year’s T20 world cup. The cricketers have seen the huge support during the 2014 world cup and are eager to have that feeling again. Their national anthem been sung, their flags being waved and thousands of eyes watching them – these give the team the adrenaline rush to make it to every World Cup from now on. The country has started dreaming once again – shrugging off the adversities it faced not a long time ago. And hope it comes true, because they deserve it.