A cricketers vision of improving cricket in Nepal

At first it was matter of passing time and getting together with friends. Slowly cricket became my passion. Selection of under- 19 tournament was going on. Fortunately the spot where I was playing cricket match got the chance to form a team in the Kalaiya Cricket Club and I was there and got selected to play at district level. This is how it began. Once, I was in under- 19 team I knew this was for me. I loved this game. I would play martial arts and football also. I feel cricket has brought me name and fame. I cannot take cricket away from my life. All the learning I did and my thought process molded through cricket. I took my education alongside. I thought about completing my masters’ level and did it successfully. Now, I don’t have any regrets of not completing my education. Infact after completing Masters Degree for me it was my second biggest achievement after cricket. These two facets gave me the edge over others.

Only being cricketer was not enough there are many cricketers like me and if I only did masters there were other people who have already done that. There would be no differentiation from the crowd. I have done MBA. My cricket life went by very quickly. Those 17 years just passed away quickly. If you love something you have the inner courage and drive to push the limits. I spent 20 years as a player. Starting from Under- 19 competition. From 1997 till 2017 I am in this field. It is not a career where you play cricket and feed your family.

Cricket gives advantage over other aspects of life. When I played those matches I had more fun memories, it was the best time of my life. Our team has won more matches than we have lost. We went to New Zealand and won to Pakistan and Bangladesh and surprised ourselves and everybody. We played with England and Zimbabwe and lost the match. At that time I felt our team was good enough to play the tournament. Those matches stood out.

After that ACC TROPHY and division match was played and we won. It changed our belief system and gave more self-confidence. Now, Cricket has become more professional than it used to be, we are at the higher division, played world cup also .People are more concerned about our performances. So it has become bigger and better. My aim is to get worldwide recognition for the Nepalese cricket team. Their hard work has made them make their mark from the rest. It is also a matter of country’s pride. I am happy to be the part of this process.

Earlier I was a cricketer and now the coach for Under-19, so the role has changed. We try to bring the best out of youngsters and happy to contribute anyway. We have not been able to devise plan for looking after the players for their growth and commitments so it is not fair to comment on plans after retirement. No government body or concerned authorities like Cricket association have a concrete plan for grooming our players. Our country has been going through transition period for long time and the past 10 -15 years have been hard for the nation. So we cannot expect government to take care of cricket or sports in particular. In a meantime, there has to be process where each and every aspect of life has to move forward but this has not happened sadly. It has to do with policy making of the country which is not so great. It looks good on paper to read the outlines but on the implementation part we fall short. That has happened with sports field. Allowances, insurance coverage, accommodation, packages for gold medalist are often heard but not yet carried out. The emphasis lies on the process of playing cricket for under -19 World Cup. If the government is not interested in private sector’s effort it becomes very hard to facilitate what we hoped for. Planning has been for so long for example like Nepal Tourism Board in 1998 they wanted ACC CUP match to promote our country through cricket match but continuity was not there at all. We don’t have proper ground here, infrastructure is lacking and the initiation has to come from our government. Other country has raced past us like Afghanistan. If system doesn’t change the future is very dim.

There are no domestic cricket tournaments only private leagues are running. We have hard time selecting players. In a four years time Nepal has the potential of becoming like Afghanistan only if we choose to be like them. We have to take actions right away and do it from the scratch. Are we willing to invest that amount of money, interest in cricket? Not 10% of their effort goes in our country. Investment has returns not wastages and what we are doing is wasting time and energy and not investing. ICC is taking keen interest in solving our major problems and hope they do it early as they can. If it is done we have bright future ahead. Our future in Cricket will be changing soon. All we need is to show more interest and involvement in games.