South Africa will host the next edition of U-19 cricket world cup to be held next year. For the hopes to be alive, Nepal has to participate in the Asian Region Qualification to be started from tomorrow. Malaysia is hosting the Asian Region qualification to be started from April 12 to April 18. The teams to participate in the qualification are Nepal, Malaysia, Kuwait, Oman, Singapore and United Arab Emirates(UAE).
Nepali Team has already reached Malaysia on April 6 to participate in the tournament. Rohit Paudel will captain the Nepalese team. He has an experience of playing One Day Internationals as well as T20s for Nepal National Team. Nepalese Team will be coached by Binod Das, former caption of Nepal National Cricket Team.
The Nepalese team members are Rohit Paudel, Bhim Sarki, Abhisekh Basnet, Kamal Singh Airi, Hari Bahadur Chauhan, Kushal Malla, Asif Sheikh, Pratish Gc, Pawan Sharaff, Rashid Khan, Rit Gautam, Sagar Dhakal, Sandeep Jora, Surya Tamang, Binod Das(Coach), Raman Shiwakoti(Team Manager) and Bikram Neupane(Physiologist).
The last time Nepal participated in the world cup was in 2016 when it was held in Bangladesh. In 2018, Nepalese Team fail to be selected in the competition. In 2017, Nepal was runner up in the Asian qualification while Afghanistan was selected defeating Nepal in the final of the competition.
There will be a total of 16 teams in the U-19 world cup for this edition. Top 11 test teams are already selected for the tournament while remaining 5 teams will be selected on the basis of regional qualification. Nigeria is already selected as the 12th team of the tournament from the Africa Region. Now the remaining qualification of teams will be from Asia, East Asia Pacific, America and Europe regions. 4 teams still to be qualified for the world cup event.
Nepal will not be facing Afghanistan in this year's qualification matches as Afghanistan is already a test team and it has also been selected in last year's world cup. So, no need to play qualification fixtures for Afghanistan. Nepal, Singapore, Oman, Kuwait, UAE and host Malaysia will play one match against each other. The team which will leads the table will reserve one spot for the U-19 world cup to be held in South Africa.
Nepal will play its first match against Singapore on April 12 in STC Stadium.
On April 13, Nepal will face UAE in the Kinara Stadium.
On April 15, Nepal will face against the host Malaysia in Bayumas Oval Stadium.
On April 16, Nepal will face against Oman in STC Stadium.
Nepal will play its last match against Kuwait on 18 April in Kirara Stadium.
All matches will be played in 10:00 am (Malaysian Time) / 7:45 am(Nepal Time)
If we look at the past, Nepal has participated 7 times in the U-19 World Cup Cricket. Nepal participated in 2000(host Srilanka), 2002(host NewZealand), 2004(host Bangladesh), 2006(host Srilanka), 2008(host Malaysia), 2012(host Australia) and 2016(host Bangladesh). Nepal participated continuously 5 times from 2000 to 2008 and in 2010 and 2014.
In 2000, Nepal had proceeded in the second round of the world cup where she faced India, Srilanka and England who were strong in comparison to Nepal and Nepal got out of the tournament after facing hem.
In 2002, Nepal beat Pakistan by 30 runs in this edition of world cup. Nepal did not marched to the second round but Nepal moved forward to the final to the plate championship.In these matches, Nepal also defeated Bangladesh by 23 runs. While in the plate final, Nepal lost to Zimbabwe by 137 runs.
In 2004, in the group stage matches, Nepal beat South Africa by 1 wicket. Nepal had the low run rate so they were behind South Africa and they were not selected for the next round.In the plate championship, Nepal was defeated by Australia and Scotland.
In 2006, Nepal won the plate championship defeating NewZealand by 1 wicket in the final of plate championship. Kaniska Chaugain was the captain for Nepal side, Nepal also defeated South Africa in the semi final of plate championship by 2 runs.
In 2008, Nepal lost against Srilanka and Australia in the group stage matches. In the plate championship, Nepal beat Zimbabwe by 99 runs in the plate quarterfinals. In the semis, Nepal beat Namibia by 4 runs and reserve their spot in the finals. In the finals, Nepal lost to West Indies by 7 wicket and was the runner up of plate championship.
In 2012, Nepal lost all her group stage matches with Australia, England and Ireland. In the plate championship Nepal lost to Srilanka by 8 wickets and this was the worst performance of Nepal in any edition of U-19 world cup till now.
In 2016, Nepal defeated NewZealand and Ireland in the group stages and proceeded forward to the quarterfinals of world cup for the second time in the world cup history. In the quarterfinal, Bangladesh defeated Nepal by 6 wickets.
With all these summaries, Nepal is always place with a lot of talent in cricket from the long time ago and it has the capability to perform on the match day. Nepal has already defeated the test teams Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, NewZealand and South Africa in the U-19 age level.
Nepal has the chance to repeat the performance of U-19 world cup this time by going through the qualifying matches. Everyone will be cheering for their countries. I am from Nepal and I will be cheering for Nepal National Cricket Team.
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