Nepal cricket team has announced their squad for ICC World Cup Qualifier 2018.
Nepal along with UAE claimed two remaining spots for ICC World Cup Qualifier 2018 after finishing on top two positions on recently concluded six teams participating ICC World Cricket League Division II. 14 players who were on Nepal’s squad during ICC WCL2 along with Lalit Rajbanshi fill up required 15 players of the squad. Rajbanshi was on reserve players list during Nepal’s last tournament. Zimbabwe, where the tournament will run, tends to give quite more favor to spinner hence, this spinner from the eastern part of the country could be an unknown commodity for the opposition. Likewise, Binod Bhandari, who was ignored by a team since primary selection, retained his spot in one reserve place. Binod Bhandari was knocked-out of the squad following his long-run bad patches. He might be included in reserve players list for his wicket-keeping role.
Nepal cricket team traveled back home yesterday after a successful Division II’s campaign. As per Nepal cricket team’s head coach, Jagat Tamata, players will take rest for 2/3 days and will join back the training. Nepal will travel to Zimbabwe on February 24. Sharad Vesawkar, who traveled to the USA yesterday, will join the team on Zimbabwe itself.
ICC World Cup Qualifier 2018 will commences from March 4 in Zimbabwe where 10 teams will fight out hard to grab up two remaining spots of ICC World Cup 2019. More than qualification race, associate nations will focus on finishing top 3 among them, which will secure their ODI status for coming four years cycle. Nepal will start their tournament against host Zimbabwe on the opening day itself. Moving forward, they will face Scotland on March 08, Afghanistan on March 10, and Hong Kong on March 12. Top three sides of each group will procure a place in SuperSix.
Nepal cricket team squad
– Paras Khadka (c)
– Gyanendra Malla
– Dilip Nath (wk)
– Dipendra Airee
– Sharad Vesawkar
– Aarif Sheikh
– Rohit Paudel
– Sompal Kami
– Karan KC
– Basant Regmi
– Sandeep Lamichhane
– Anil Sah
– Shakti Gauchan
– Lalit Bhandari
– Lalit Rajbanshi
Reserve players –
– Siddhant Lohani
– Sunil Dhamala
– Kishor Mahato
– Binod Bhandari
The newly added face will be an unknown commodity for the opposition.
(Source – Nepallive.com)
