Dipendra: A New Prince in The Making

Just take a deep breath and try feeling the reverberation as a cricket fan, couldn’t you? Try it once again; you will definitely hear the roar repeatedly enchanting Nepal! Nepal!. Much more than the cricket fans we could easily get cricket enthusiast in a spirited world of Nepali cricket. Nepali cricket is rich in history yet lacks charisma in its batting order.

Let’s continue the imagination with hot coffee if possible. With each sip get into the groove of watching cricket as Nepalese fans, what mesmerizes you the most about your team playing this beautiful game? Wow! Now that’s a dilemma that you would be going through.

Your mind will recall every beautiful aspect of the team. Right from winning on the home turf to beating Kenya in the world cup qualifiers, Paras Khadka’s marathon innings to Gyanendra Malla’s charming half century. Likewise, Mehboob Alam’s world record performance to Subash Khakurel’s praise in the world Television by Sanjay Manjrekar. From a small cricketing brain to a helicopter shot of Siddhanth, Sagar Pun’s electrified fielding efforts to Shakti Gauchan’s celebration you would get every diversities under the same roof. The only thing that would leave that cup of coffee from your lips to the table back again is our repeated failure in the batting department.

Too many cricket pundits out there, cricket is the game of uncertainties but for someone who hopes cricket to go beyond boundaries, it basically is a batsman’s game. As long as you have an ability to rotate strike you are in control of your game. All the modern greats today in the international cricket fraternity believes in stealing singles as well as manufacturing doubles and triples. Nepal faced this problem and if mistakenly either of Paras Khadka, as well as Gyanendra Malla, gets out the whole of our team would be bundled out in a below par score. To some extent, Sharad Vaeswakar has been handling the senior role of anchoring the innings but the main question is how long could he hold on at one end of the 22 yards. Thus, Nepali bench which is the U-19 Nepali cricket team is a hope for the sun to shine brightly above the dark clouds in Nepali cricket.

There is one unique self-developing batsman who plays according to the merit of the situation. I would love to coin the word,” Prince” to this emerging star of the U-19 team, none other than Dipendra Singh Airee.

A swift record in the domestic arena that justifies the natural talent that this player possesses, he is also a newly appointed captain replacing the orthodox leggie, Sandeep Lamichhane. His fascinating touch in the Ruslan Cup, Prime Minister Cup and Everest Premier League with his unique celebration proved Airee to be the most diverse and composed batsmen Nepal have ever produced at the junior level in the recent times. He was highlighted after the lone innings of 90 from 99 balls nearly proved Hercules effort before ending up in the most tragic innings by a youngster in the U-19 platform for Nepal. Although Nepal lost the match, Airee got praised even from the senior team captain Paras Khadka motivating the youngster for his fighting innings. The whim that cares got ignited after this heroic effort of a champion player.

This made him part of a senior team that played against Kenya in Nepal, where he got an opportunity to prove his worth of being pivotal support in an incompetent middle order. His half century was a mark of a very talented asset to Nepali cricket who were in search of a busy player that could hit good balls for boundaries. His punch of the back foot, leaning drive towards cover region, pull shot and lofted o a drive created a festive mood in the crowd who couldn’t control themselves from jumping off their seats.

Modern era demands a busy player who could nudge it around tuck off the pads and play the balls in the gap with minimum risk in the longer format. If we see the likes of AB De Villiers, Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson, Joe Root, Hashim Amla as well as Steve Smith all of them are good to rotate the strike. Dipendra Singh Airee not only possesses charisma but also some of the orthodox shot which is slowly being a victim of modern T20 where batting is branding cricket and taking away the real colors of the game.

To sum up the imagination in the drawing room with the dry cup you could hold on to a fact that Nepal got a vacant place fulfilled after the arrival of the young talent in a crucial position. None the less, challenges are the part and partials of the game but if we deal with it in a manner like Airee do, I think it fades away. With Dipendra you always feel yes the batting gene has been transferred and it is immortal. Hence a prince is in the making as Nepali cricket is heading towards light beyond the esteemed imagination.