Watching Bangladesh go from a perennial punching back in South Asia to a serious contender for top honors at the just-concluded Asia Cup must have warmed more than a few cockles of the hearts of Nepali cricket lovers. It is always great to see an underdog steal a bit of limelight from the heavyweights, and not just in cricket. When Iraq won the Asia Cup of football in 2007, the victory was celebrated not only in Iraq, which has had few things to rejoice about since the US-led invasion started in 2003, but right around the world. When golfer Trevor Immelman claimed the Masters, one of the four golf majors, in 2008, only a year after contracting cancer, the whole sporting community hailed the miraculous comeback. Cyclist Lance Armstrong too overcame a debilitating cancer to claim seven consecutive Tour de France titles, the highest accolade in professional cycling.
For its part, Bangladesh has come a long-long way since making its Test debut in 2000. The Bangladeshi cricket team too seemed to have been incapacitated by some kind of malignancy as it went on to lose 21 Tests and 23 ODIs on a trot, one of the most dubious records in the history of international cricket. Thus as it played the Asia Cup final against Pakistan in Dhaka on Thursday, many neutrals were rooting for the underdogs. What all sports lovers, be they sloshed-out head-butting fans of American football or the ardent lovers of golf and Test cricket, those who like their action nice and easy, have in common, is their yearning for a real contest: A right jab met with a left hook; a curved-in equalizer against an early goal; a stump-smashing yorker for every half century. That was exactly what they got in the most competitive final in Asia Cup’s history. Bangladesh fell short by an agonizing two runs.
Going into the ICC World T20 Qualifiers in the UAE, Nepali cricket fans genuinely believed the national team had a good chance of finally making it to the big stage. They had good reason to think so. Except for Ireland and Afghanistan, most of other teams in the field of 16 are comprised of South Asian expats. Countries like the Netherlands and Scotland have very few native players and virtually no cricket infrastructure. Yet they managed to perform much better than Nepal, a country with tremendous cricket following and a long cricketing history: The sport is believed to have been first played in Nepali territories sometime in the 1920s; Nepal Cricket Council, the sport’s governing body in the country, is itself over 50 years old.
Nepali national team’s continued failure hints some things are amiss with the way cricket is run in Nepal. It’s isn’t hard to spot the flaws. First, the country is desperately short on real, sporty pitches; most competitive matches outside the Valley are still played on the mat. In TU’s cricket ground, there is only one good stadium in the country. But there is also a third, rather tricky problem: Even Bangladesh had to go through horrendous bouts of losses in the international arena since its ODI debut against Pakistan in 1986. Playing at the highest level for over two decades undoubtedly contributed to the team’s development. Nepal, on the other hand, has not even had a taste of top international cricket. There is promise as Nepal’s consistent performance in age-group tournaments indicate.
But unless the level of professionalism in international cricket can somehow be replicated, in every area from coaching to infrastructure development, Nepali cricket is likely to be in the backwaters of South Asia for years to come. As the likes of Immelman and Armstrong have shown, nothing is impossible in sports. But one has to at least make a start.
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