At the International level, Nepali Cricket is rocking and have been putting the amazing performance. The Nepalese players are keeping the hard work and those success stories of Nepal cricket is solely because of hard working Nepali players although they have very limited resources. Nepal has recently gained ODI status from International Cricket Council. Also, Nepal played its first ODI series against the Netherlands registering their first ODI win and drawing series 1-1. The success of Nepali Cricket and performances of Nepali players are always in the news but the dark side of Nepali Cricket barely gets covered. Nepalese players haven't received any salaries from the cricketing board for last 19 month.
Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) is the governing body and responsible for all the cricket activities in Nepal. CAN is heavily corrupted and interfered by the government of Nepal in many decision making. Because of this, the International Cricket Council (ICC) banned the CAN since 2016. Because of the ban, Nepal no longer receives any funds fromm ICC. ICC wants the CAN to draft the new constitution proposed by them but CAN refused it. But ICC did allow Nepal to participate in the ICC events. The ban in the cricketing board didn't affect the player's performance and they continued to march forward in ICC events and achieved ODI status in March of 2018. Many prize money was announced by the CAN and the government on all these achievements, but players didn't receive most of them.
Before the ban, CAN used to receive large funds from ICC. For the development of cricket the grassroots levels and to encourage the players, CAN made a salary scheme grouping players in different groups namely Grade A, B, C and D. Each grade had the monthly salary ranging from $50 to $350. The grade A players earned as high as $350 per month which included most of the players from the national team. CAN paid the salary to the players for some months but after the ban and the ICC fund's cut-off, CAN haven't paid the salary for 19 months now.
This war between CAN and ICC will have very negative effects in the Cricket of Nepal. There are no cricketing events by ICC in Nepal, but the private party organizes some events like Everest Premier League, the only path for the youngsters to showcase their talents. CAN had proposed to build other International level cricket stadium, but it had been more than a decade that Nepal has only one proper stadium. These negative vibes and facts are discouraging for the youngsters to pursue cricket. And many times, it enforces them to leave their career as a player and pursue other jobs for the survival. And it is clear if we look into the national team. The same sets of players are playing every time, and there are no new faces coming into the squad for long.
The problem in the CAN, government interference, and the corruption must be resolved as soon as possible. We are discouraging new talents to come into cricket and losing them every day. Our current success won't last long and we might soon lose the ODI status instead of going forward and getting full membership in ICC.
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