Cricket Association Nepal announces U-19 WC qualifier squad

Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) on Wednesday announced 18-member squad for the upcoming ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup qualifiers.

Prithu Baskota will lead the Nepali team in the event scheduled to be held from July 28 to August 9 in Ireland.

Top six teams from the 10-team round-robin league event will qualify for the Youth World Cup. Other participating teams are Afghanistan, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, Namibia, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, USA and Vanuatu.

prithu baskota

Other players named in the squad include Sagar Pun, Bhuwan Karki, Naresh Budhayer, Failzur Rahman Khan, Rajesh Pulami, Subash Khakurel, Rahul Biswakarma, Avinash Karn, Krishna Karki and Pradeep Airee.

All those competed in the ACC U-19 Elite Cup where Nepal finished second behind Afghanistan to qualify for the U-19 WC qualifiers.

CAN selected seven new cricketers who were no part of the ACC event. They are Jitendra Mukhiya, Subendu Pandey, Amit Dahal, Amrit Shrestha, Amit Shrestha, Rupesh Srivastav and Nischal Pandey. Jagat Tamata is named the coach.

“We dropped Bibek Dali, Rahul Pratap Singh and Shiva Tandukar from the team played in the ACC event for their international as well as national performance was below par,” chief selection Bijaya Sharma said.

Sharma also added that the performance of the U-19 players during the qualifiers could promote some of the players to the national squad. “We didn’t announce the national team because we want to see how these young players perform,” he said.

National team is slated to participate in the ACC Twenty20 event in December in Kathmandu.