Kathmandu, August 13

National cricket team head coach Jagat Tamatta and U-19 team head coach Binod Kumar Das announced a 28-member preliminary squad for the ACC U-19 Asia Cup’s Eastern Region Qualifiers slated for September 8-17 in Malaysia.

Among them, Sandeep Lamichhane, Anil Kumar Sah, Sandeep Sunar, Dipendra Singh Airee, Lalit Narayan Rajbanshi, Prakash KC, Pawan Sarraf, Rohit Kumar Paudel, Rijan Dhakal, Pranit Thapa Magar, Shahab Alam, Adil Khan, Mohammad Asif Sheikh and Kishor Mahato were in the team that played the ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifier for Asia Region held in Singapore last month.

Similarly, Bikram Kumar Bhusal, Sundeep Jora, Rasid Khan and Shushant Sing Thapa were in the reserve list for the qualifiers.

The new faces called up for the camp are Nandan Yadav, Kamal Singh Airee, Sumit Maharjan, Jitendra Singh Thakuri, Minas Thapa, Ankit Subedi, Hari Chauhan, Avinash Karn, Bhim Sarki and Rabindra Jung Shahi. The training camp will start on August 18 in Kathmandu.

A total of eight teams — Nepal, Malaysia, Bhutan, China, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and Myanmar — will vie for the top two positions available for the ACC U-19 Asia Cup to be played in Malaysia in November.

The two qualifiers each from Eastern and Western regions will join Test-playing nations India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the eight-nation competition. The Western Region includes Afghanistan, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Bahrain, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.