The two directives of National Sports Council (NSC), the governmental umbrella organization of sports associations, have made the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) delay the announcement of the national cricket tournament.

The first directive letter describes about a rule of NSC that prohibits organization of any tournament with the name of living person. Since Jai Trophy, the national tournament, is named after CAN president Jai Kumar Nath Shah, it should change its name for next edition.

The second letter has informed CAN about the organization of national cricket tournament by NSC. "They want to organize inter-district tournament and has asked us to submit the budget proposal. We have submit that and the decision would come within a few weeks," said Binaya Raj Pandey, the honorably secretary of CAN.

CAN is waiting to see when the tournament will take place. Only after the announcement of that tournament, CAN will think about another national trophy. "We are now busy with U-15 regional selection tournament so aren't quite thinking about the Jai Trophy," said Pandey.

"But we have thoughts of taking it to the regional level and league base," said Pandey, "Most probably the district level tournament will serve as the selection tournament for the regional team."

"We have the provision of organizing two or three days matches. For that we thought about the less teams and league base," said Pandey. If the regional team plays national trophy, there would be only 5 teams in the finale.

Beside the uncertainty about the Jai Trophy everything is going quite well for Nepal's cricket. The last issue's article had the news about the semifinals of East West BDM Cricket Tournament.

Yeti Airlines become the champion of the tournament which had the largest prize money. Yeti defeated East West by 6 wickets in the final played at Tribhuwan University Ground. East West batted first and made 211. At one point they were 99/5 but a few good contributions and 44 by no. 8 batsman Bikash Sharma took them to the formidable total.

The captain of Yeti, Prafulla Vaidhya was most successful with 3 wickets in expense with 42 runs. The total seemed defendable as Yeti had only 35 overs to chase it and given to that 9 players of East West were from New Delhi of India.

Yeti had the worst possible start as they lose Sandip Shrestha on the first ball he faced. But man of the match and man of the tournament, Abdesh Srivastav, was in exceptional mood, he along with Prafulla (5) added 65 for the second wicket and 92 with Amit Das (unbeaten 66) for third wicket to create the foundation of the victory.

But Abdesh missed his century by 9 runs. He was out at 91 from only 64 balls. He hit 15 fours and a six in his fast forward inning. Yeti won the match with 7 balls in spare and pocketed 25,000 rupees with the beautiful trophy.

After that, another regular cricket tournament with a name change, was organized at Tundikhel at the centre of Kathmandu. Late King Birendra Memorial Trophy was actually a tri series tournament participated with Mahabir Club, Ratna Laxmi Club and Everest College, the organizer.

Winning its all matches in double league, Mahabir entered the final as the favorite. Everest College won its two matches against Ratna Laxmi to face mighty Mahabir.

Dipendra Chaudhary found it too easy to score of Everest bowlers and made quick century. His 108 in 103 balls with 11 fours and 2 sixes took the total score of Mahabir to 254 for 8 in allotted 40 overs. Raju Khadka made a run a ball 60 with 6 fours and a six to keep the pace of scoring. Rikesh Lama and Anil Amatya took 2 wickets each.

In reply, Everest were beckoned by Raju Basnet and Maehboob Alam sharing 2 wickets each. They could only manage 177 in 36.3 overs and lost by 77 runs. Rikesh Lama made 60 while Amir Aktar and Karan Ghimire made 42 and 33 respectively.

Dipendra Chaudhary was declared man of the final and man of the series while Sandip Shrestha got the award of Best Bowler with 10 wickets in 5 matches and Vikranta Chetri who made century in the opener, was declared Best Batsman.

After this, the popular players find themselves outside the valley. Lions Club of Chitwan organized Lions tournament in Chitwan. Yeti Airlines won the tournament defeating Youth Cricket club of Biratnagar by 79 runs.

Yeti made 209 in their inning and restricted Youth to 130 in 31.5 overs. Sandip Shrestha of Yeti was awarded man of the final and series. He took 3 wickets in final and made 55. Raju Khadka also took 3 wickets whike Unil Shrestha of Youth made 35.

Another tournament was organized at Birgunj and Bara. Late Dugarmal Chachan Memorial Cricket Tournament was participated by teams from India and Nepal.

Although Birgunj and Bara couldn't reach the final, the Yeti Airlines represented Nepal in the final against Union Bank of Mumbai. Yeti was defeated by 66 runs as their batsmen failed to score.

UB made 209/9 in allotted 40 overs with Angu Swami scoring 66 and Ranpam Malbia 39. Raju Basnet and Sandip Shrestha took 2 wickets each. But Yeti could only manage 143 in 35.2 overs. Manish Sekhalkar took 4 wickets and Angu Swami took 3 wickets to claim man of the final. Manish Shrestha made 37 while Rabindra Thapa scored 29.

Good bye till the next issue of 'Beyond the Test World'.

Ujjwol Acharya is the Editor of Nepal Cricket website

© ICC 2002