The battle for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 intensifies as the next round of fixtures of the ICC World Cricket League Championship gets underway this month, giving Associate teams the opportunity to make it to the 50-over pinnacle event.
The last fixture of 6th Round of WCL is on 13th and 15th October between Nepal and HongKong. Hosts Hong Kong will look to cement their fourth position, whereas Nepal is three points behind Hong Kong with eight points, and are still not out of the reckoning for the final qualifying spot.
Today, here we would like to discuss Nepal Cricket Team and their players before the vital matches against HongKong. Nepal had just finished their 10 days long preparation tour of Chennai, India where they managed to win their first three matches, but somehow lost the plot on the final match of preparation tour. If they like to take the most positive aspect of that particular tour than it would be their opening pair stand. In the past, Nepal had faced lots of problems due to lack of stable opening pair. So it wouldn’t be wrong if I say Sagar Pun and Gyanendra Malla are the best answer to that problem till now. It’s not only me who is admiring them, their stats in first three matches of preparation tour itself speaks the volume of success by their inclusion in the opening slot.
They involved in opening partnership of 28, 67 and 46 in first three matches respectively. There are other positive aspects that we noticed during preparation tour such as the growth of Sagar Pun and Dipendra Airee as key All-Rounder. Sagar scored 180 runs and took 5 wickets on four particular matches where Dipendra scored 121 runs and took 3 wickets in three matches. That includes a destructive knock of 73 runs off 37 balls o the third match Vs Tamilnadu ‘A’. We can’t obscure the fact that two Nepalese batsmen, Sharad Vesawkar and Gyanendra Malla converted their start into a century on this tour, which in fact, is very rare and vital positive aspect of the Nepal Cricket Team.
Nepal needs to carry on these positive aspects with them and should move forward to produce a wonderful cricket against the strong opponents like HongKong.
Some aggressive mentality of winning seems essential at this moment rather than a defensive thought of not losing a match. Winning these key matches would inspire and unlock many doors for Nepalese youngsters who have kept their set of a bat, ball, and stump behind the door of drawing rooms.
