Cricket Association of Nepal must take critical steps to develop women’s cricket

The  women’s national cricket team of Nepal concluded the four nations Twenty20 international cricket championship held in Uganda on a disappointing note recently.

The quadrangular series featured Nepal, Hong Kong, Namibia and Uganda.The sides played each other twice with the top two teams in the table standings making it to the championship game.Likewise,the bottom two sides clashed to avoid the wooden spoon.

When all had been said and done,hosts Uganda emerged convincing 8 wickets winners over Namibia in the title decider.

Nepal’s hopes of finishing the tournament in third place evaporated after their fixture against Hong Kong was called off due to rain.

Hong Kong ended the series in third place with  three  wins and three losses.

Team Nepal skippered  by Indu Barma  went into the competition with high hopes and was expected to deliver a  winning performance.

Prior to the start of the competition, taking into account the opponents strengths and weaknesses, Nepal had stood a  fairly good  chance of not only  finishing atop the standings but  winning the championship as well.

However, as things panned out,it didn’t materialize  for them as they fell well short of expectations.Instead  they finished at the  bottom of the table with just two wins and four defeats.

They  played two matches each against Uganda and Hong Kong, winning one and losing one. The two  defeats at the hands of Namibia proved to be the turning point for Nepal.

Coming back to the team’s performance, by and large,once again fragile  and inconsistent batting  largely contributed  to the team’s downfall.Clearly,there was lack of execution on part of batters.

The batters had the right intent but they lacked application,technique,commitment, discipline,consistency and right approach.

Captain of Under-19 Puja Mahato topped the batting average with 90 runs,followed by captain  Indu Barma(84 runs) and Samjhana Khadka(76 runs) from 6 matches for Nepal.

In the tournament overall batting statistics  Mahato,Barma and Khadka finished 7th,9th, and 12th respectively.

Displaying her allround talent skipper Barma narrowly edged out left-arm bowler Ishwori Bist to top the bowling honor for the team.

Both bowlers had  the same number of wickets(8),however, Barma  had a better bowling average.Mahato with 6 wickets  was the team’s third highest wicket taker.

Out  of the top 15 wicket takers in the competition,Barma,Bist and Mahato were fourth, seventh and eighth respectively.

The  team’s batting has to  improve going forward. It will require commitment,focus, positive mindset,extra effort,technical  correction and the right strategic approach on the part of batters. 

The series provided players the much needed exposure,experience,and the chance to showcase their skills while   identifying their weak points in play.

It is imperative that players are  seriously committed to working on their shortcomings,striving for growth and delivering the desired results.

The biggest takeaway from this competition is  that there is plenty of room for improvement, and the team has the potential  to compete against any opposition.

In order to bring out the best from them, the Cricket Association of Nepal  must take critical steps to fully support their development through  a strong domestic cricket structure, robust infrastructure and training facilities, adequate funding, quality  coaching, and rock solid grassroots development.

Apart from that they have to be given   international  exposure with regularity to help them grow  and become match -hardened players.