Nepal quickly rising up the ladder

SHARJAH The growth of the Nepal cricket team in the recent past has been nothing short of phenomenal.

With a committed bunch of talented youngsters, the team managed to achieve a major success when they emerged champions in the ICC World Cricket League (WCL) Division 4 held in Malaysia last month.

Pubudu Dassanayake, who took over as the coach over a year ago is not surprised with the way Nepal have been performing so far. “The talent and ability was always there,” said Dassanayake, who has played an important role in developing the team.

“I put a lot of effort by changing the cricket culture. There were two important changes I stressed on. The first one was you can’t play cricket for a couple of months and then do whatever you want in the remaining months.

“They need to be training the whole year and work on their fitness levels. So that’s one thing we really pushed for. We can’t take care of them all 12 months — they also have to take care of themselves.

“This system changed and we also worked on their confidence level to play big teams. When I came to Nepal I saw they had doubts about facing big teams. I felt I was successful in breaking that mindset and they are a lot more confident now when they walk onto the ground,” said the Sri Lanka born Canadian coach.

Nepal are in the UAE to participate in the ACC Elite Cup and are placed in Group B alongside hosts UAE, Hong Kong, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Dassanayake felt this tournament was important as it would give them an idea as to where they stood before playing the WCL Division 3 tournament in April-May in Bermuda. “Winning here would be great, but we would like to see where we stand against big teams like Afghanistan, UAE and Hong Kong before playing the Division 3.

“It’s a good test for us,” he said. “After the Malaysian victory the boys are confident. They really worked hard so now they have the confidence to play in a bigger league.”

Dassanayake said people in Nepal were excited after their team emerged champions. “The whole country is excited as we are moving up the ladder. Everybody is hoping that we will make it to the World Cup qualifiers at least. That’s the plan and we have another barrier in March to play the World Division 3, so this tournament is good preparation for that.

Dassanayake said the National Cricket Academy that would soon be soon set up in Nepal would also give a big boost to the game there. “We are in the process of setting up a National Cricket Academy. All planning is done only implement remains. But we need more domestic tournaments which is hurting us.”