ICC WCL Div 5.
Jersey
30/05/08

Nepal now enters the most important phase of the tournament after regular minnow bashing in the league rounds. Nepal will play much media hyped Afghanistan, who was thought to be the tournamnet favourite till they were soundly beaten by Singapore. Afghanistans place in the semis are courtesy of media hype, weather fortunes and mismanagement. Singapore deserved to be in semis after having such a great tournament.

Nepal is still unbeaten and group leader of their team. The team lead by two Ds' (Dias, the coach and Das, the captain) are still to be tested. Nepal have a decent performance against USA, the only team which challaned Nepal seriously but the score is still to be settled as weather didnot allowed USA to bat.

However, Nepals problem of batting is still unsolved. Gyanandra Malla is at prime form and Alam is helping with bat a lot but other major batsman have not yet clicked yet. Nepal have depth in batting, as Das and B Regmi are regular 8 & 9 numbers. Paresh Lohani and Shakti Gauchan havent performed a lot with bat and Shakti isnt contributing a lot with ball either. Given the way Alam is taking wickets and Das stopping the run flow, any team at this level would have major problem in scoring 200 against Nepal.

Lets hope, Nepal to reach the finals which will open the door to Division 4, which is one step closer to World Cup 2011. I hope to see five sub-continental team ( Ind, Pak, Sri, B'desh and Nepal) in the 2011 WC.

Best of Luck to both RHINOS and the TALIBANS.

- Gyanguru