The passion for the cricket is growing. Every second child is asking for a cricket bat on their birthday; a large number of people are watching it on the television; media are giving more than a good coverage and more than that a very large number of youngsters are playing cricket.

What the 53 years old CAN (Cricket Association of Nepal) was unable to do in five decades is done by the satellite television channels in less than a decade. The wake of cricket has waken up the CAN which has already organised some good fixtures especialy the international tournament and fixtures. The organisation of the 2nd ACC Trophy was a grand success and they are waiting to eye on the ICC trophy after the organization of the U-19 ACC Trophy in Nepal this coming October.

The growth of cricket has given CAN the oppurtunity to organise three levels of selection matches on U-19. The youngsters are quite interested and dedicated in cricket and some of them are immensely talented. After watching the U-19 regional selection matches a senior sports journalist said - "I couldn't have imagined these kids can play like that if I wasn't here."

'The prospects for the future'

Nepal will take part in the World Cup and will be a Test nation soon. This is the bottom line, at least for now.

The development projects of ICC and ACC has contributed quite a lot for the future. Coaches like Haroon Rashid, and Altaf Baluch couldn't be hired by CAN but they came and taught the Nepalese players and coaches some of the tricks and skills of the game. The praising article by Geoff Boycott when he was in Nepal for a week wouldn't have come without ICC initiatives.

The popularity of cricket among the young children has already started showing the impact. Munik Shrestha, Shakti Gauchan, Bantu Bataju, Karan Ghimire, Bardan Chalise, Yashwatn Subedi, Binod Das, Manij Katuwal, Dipesh Khatri and lot more to follow are already made big names and has sent message to the cricket related people that they are ready to take over Nepal's cricket guture.

Schools are also showing interest in cricket. The lone cricket academy in Kathmandu Valley, Everest College Cricket Academy, is being run by a college in the premises of a school. There aren't any other such academy where people can learn cricket which may be a drawback but CAN appointed the regional coaches. Cricketing clubs coaches on their own.

When the academy of Kathmandu has its beyond-imagination first batch students, they were amazed by a name Ravi, 36 years old. Ravi is actually the founder principle of a high school in Bhaktapur. "To get a student of my age is really an encouraging factor."- said Arun Aryal, the chief cricket coach of Nepal Sports Council (NSC) and the academy.

"To have such a interest in cricket in that age for a man who has never played cricket in the past is quite extra ordinary," said Arun. But Ravi didn't want to play by himself - instead he wanted to teach his students what he learnt. He invested a large sum of money (50,000 rupees) for the iron practice net and cricket kits.

The potential sponsors are being attracted to the Nepalese cricket by its relative success in international matches. And the number of tournaments are increasing every year so the clubs and the teams.

"The Encouraging Present"

No playable ground in Kathmandu Valley remains without stumps during holidays.

The tournaments are being staged by different organizers. Inter Club, Inter College, Inter School and Indo Nepal Cricket are organised.

Not even a single day of newpapers go without tournament news.

The heart of Kathmandu, Tundikhel ground stages more than half a dozen tournaments a year.

The only discouraging fact is that apart from the nation-wide Jai Trophy all other tourmnaments hags in the uncertainty of next year.

Mahabir Cup, organised by the oldest club, was very popular and attracted teams from all over Nepal and some from India too. But after 4th edition it has stopped 3 years ago. The tournament had given some profits for the club too. The only factor that stopped the tournament is that there is not enough manpower to take over its organization from Diwakar Ghale, the President of the club when he became busy with his own business.

Now two other torunaments are being popular - Everest Trophy in Kathmandu and Tuborg Inod Nepal Cup in Siddarthanagar, a southern city in Terai. Both have sponsors and big names playing for them.

"We have two editions in which some popular names were playing. From the next edition we would be able to gain," Biraj Pyakurel, a member of CAN and the organiser of Everest Cup was happy to say it.

Munir Shrestha, Manish Shrestha, Kiran Rana, Sandeep Shrestha, Paresh Lohani, Paras Joshi, Kalam Ali are some of the popular names in cricket.

The Kalaiya District Cricket Association, is building their own cricket ground investing their own finances. They have already invested more than 1 million rupees on that and need a lot more. "We have started it and will finish it anyhow," said a member of the building committee.

"The Memoirs of the Past

The powerful and rich Rana people intorduced cricket to Nepal some six decades ago after learning it in India. They even built ground in their palaces and organised fixtures with each other.

Initiated from them the oldest sports association of Nepal, CAN was formulated before starting some competitions like the Jai and Bishnu Trophys. That's a long time ago.

Because of the expensive materials it couldn't spread quickly among the general people and became a luxury game.

Only after more than 30 years, it slowly begin to rise. The Terai region was influenced by the Indian Cricket and the border cities established clubs and played matches with each other.

Kathmandu had four competitve clubs which challenged each other in cricket for the pride of their locality. Mahabir, Baneswor, Gairidhara and Tribeni were the rivals.

Ten years back, two popular tournaments were started and stopped after two and three years play. Bhattarai Cup and Anmolmani Cup both were stopped because of the indisciplinary acts. The last finals of these two cup staged in Football Stadium saw violence among the players, supporters and even the umpires were beaten.

Bhattarai Cup was established by Upendra Bhattarai in the name of his father. Upendra is one of the person who wanted to see the cricket rise. Even 3 years back a sixer in any tournament in Kathmandu would get a hundred rupees for each six from his pocket.

Lets conclude, the Nepalese Cricket is growing in the fast track which shows that immensely talented youngsters the hope to play World Cup and 5 day version of the game with the countries of their ideal players. And the day is not far away.

© 2001 CricInfo Ltd