Kathmandu, April 29

The officials of the suspended Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) today claimed the membership ban imposed by the International Cricket Council was the outcome of the National Sports Council’s move of forming the ad hoc committee.

General Secretary Ashok Nath Pyakurel said the ICC had clearly mentioned the government interference as the root cause of suspending the CAN membership.

The board meeting of the world governing body suspended the Nepal’s association “for breaching Article 2.9 of the ICC’s Articles of Association, which prohibits government interference and requires free and fair elections,” Pyakurel said.

“We were also surprised with the ICC decision as they had hinted at not suspending CAN for at least three months,” said Pyakurel at a press meet. “We need to have this suspension lifted and we are ready to cooperate with government to resolve the crisis.

But we have some reservations which we cannot compromise in the name of solution. We held our elections as per our statute and we cannot give up democratic norms. And we will fight till the end to establish system at the CAN.

Whether it is right or wrong, there has to be a system which should be allowed to work freely,” said Pyakurel, adding, “The body was ad hoc for six decades and we compromised with various elements to bring CAN under a certain system.”

Pyakurel accused the NSC of creating the controversy. “We just wanted to have a free and fair election but the NSC did not give us the election committee because of the vested interest of bringing in its cadres in the executive committee.

We held our general assembly on our own as per the mandate of the representatives,” he said.

The AGM elected committee headed by Chatur Bahadur Chand on December 29 despite NSC’s disapproval. In return the NSC formed an ad hoc committee under Ramesh Silwal on January 7.

Chand-led committee moved the Supreme Court and the apex court has sent the case to full bench hearing on May 22.