Apropos of the news story “Cricketers return home to heroes’ welcome” (THT, March 20, Page 1), our cricketers have made Nepal proud.

Besides other tangible benefits, we can now get huge TV publicity for free — good for tourism — during the live telecast of our matches.

We are confident that the boys will go from strength to strength, bringing more tangible and intangible laurels for the country. For this, we cannot be complacent as advised by the head coach. We don’t want our historic achievement to fizzle out by playing a few games.

Do we? The government should promote cricket at all levels to hunt for new talents. There is no need for many interactions and debates.

Just copy what other countries have done and implement it for the success of the game. The government should also invest heavily in both cricketers and the infrastructure.

Open cricket schools and build international standard cricket grounds in all provinces. As put forth by the skipper, Paras Khadka, it is now the time for the government as well as all those who call themselves “stakeholders” to come up with ideas and capital for cricket. Nepal’s private conglomerates and NRNs have a chance, too, to further their PR, publicity, brand and business by taking interest in the development of the game. They can also build their own private state-of-the-art cricket grounds, as done by English football clubs, for their own sake as well as that of cricket.

We should not allow this huge gain to slip through our fingers just because we don’t have money or our stakeholders don’t want to come up with money. If nothing works, we should invite foreign investors to build infrastructure for the game dubbed “gentlemen’s sport”.

The cricket playing countries might be happy to invest in Nepal’s cricket.

Cricket will also promote sport tourism just as elephant polo did for the country in general and Chitwan in particular.

Manohar Shrestha,Kathmandu

Public land

It is good news that the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has initiated steps to identify the public land encroached upon by people for personal benefits “Encroached land being identified” (THT, March 20, Page 2). The KMC has directed all ward officials to identify the public land occupied by individuals.

The local level units have been authorised to identify such land and preserve them for public use. Those areas can be developed as public parks and gardens. They can be used as temporary relief centres in the time of emergency.

Many people had used those open spaces inside Singha Durbar, Tundhikhel and TU premises as temporary shelters after the 2015 earthquake. Public spaces are necessary to maintain greenery in urban areas.

The KMC should create a database of such areas so that they can be utilised for the larger benefit of the public.

Squatters’ haphazard settlements on the riverbanks should also be discouraged and, they should be settled under an organised housing scheme.

Ruchee Shrestha, Patan