Nepal might lose hosting rights of ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup Qualifier due to lack of professional approach

The tenures of the extended contracts of Ghimire and Maharjan are not giving enough confidence to both the paid administrators.

Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) might lose the hosting rights of ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2015 as their administrative capacity to deliver the event successfully is still under doubt. Nepal has been approved as the host of the ICC U-19 CWC Qualifier 2015 by International Cricket Council (ICC) recently. The tournament is scheduled to be held on October – November this year. But this approval is conditional as the ICC officials need to be fully satisfied with CAN’s administrative capability to host the event successfully.

ICC instructed CAN to strengthen it’s internal capacity. But CAN’s recent approach was not professional enough. The board has decided to give only three-month extension to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bhawana Ghimire and Finance Manager (FM) Prakash Maharjan, when there are six months to go for the event.

The tenures of the extended contracts are not giving enough confidence to both the paid administrators, who have been working hard for the development of Nepal Cricket. Meanwhile according to ICC, to host the event, the board need to have a CEO, FM and an operations manager but CAN are yet to appoint them.

The six-month contract of both Ghimire and Maharjan had expired on April 14. CAN was criticised heavily on social media after it was said that the board was divided in the issue of giving extension to this the duo, particularly to CEO Ghimire, a report published in Ekantipur.com wrote. This is very surprising as after Ghimire

The report further added, the CAN’s Acting President Deepak Koirala also admitted that there was division in the cricket governing body to extend Ghimire’s contract. He was quoted saying, “There were majority of members who didn’t want to extend Ghimire’s contract. Since we cannot deny the fact that she has contributed to the momentum gathered by cricket, we had to come to an agreement.”

For the first time Nepal has been trusted by ICC to hold a big event like the ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifier. The tournament can be major boost for the development of Nepal Cricket. So the cricket administrators of the country should not lose the hosting rights of the tournament due to internal politics and lack of professionalism. But If eventually they lose they event, the board will likely to face huge criticism from the fans of Nepal cricket.

(Sandipan Banerjee is a reporter at CricketCountry. Cricket has been the biggest passion for him since his childhood. So, when it came to choosing his career, he chose to turn his passion into his profession. Apart from cricket he likes mountain trekking, river rafting, and photography. His twitter handle is @im_sandipan)