Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, March 23:

The Nepali cricket team under the captainship of Raju Khadka left for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to participate in the International Cricket Council (ICC) Intercontinental Cricket Tournament here today.

Nepal will play against the UAE in the three-day match from March 25-27, while Nepal is scheduled to play against Malaysia in April in Kathmandu.

"The three-day match is new for us as we are playing the longer-version of the game for the first time," said Khadka at a farwell programme organised by National Sports Council today.

Khadka seemed satisfied with the training his team received before leaving. "We had a good training for three weeks, now we are mentally prepared for the match," he added. "We also had a training with Under-19 boys and played some practice matches, which I think would help while playing against UAE," he said.

Coach Roy Luke Dias also had the same view as he said, "This is for the first time we are going to play the three-day match. I hope the players would do well on the field since we have had enough training in the camp."He added that the practice match played during the training camp also helped them to undersand the format and play for longer innings.

"These boys have played only in one-day matches and they need to remain at the crease for a longer time," said Dias.

NSC member secretary Kishor Bahadur Singh gave his best wishes to the team as he said that the players are ambassadors of the country they represent and they need to be good on and off the field. CAN president Jai Kumar Nath Shah and other officials from CAN and NSC were also present on the occasion.

SQUAD: Raju Khadka (captain), Binod Das (vice captain), Raj Kumar Pradhan, Paras Lunia, Dipendra Chaudhari, Manjit Shrestha, Mehboob Alam, Manoj Katuwal (wicket-keeper), Bikash Lal Dali, Sajam Regmi, Shakti Prasad Gauchan, Paresh Lohani, Sahrad Vesawkar and Raju Basnyat. Roy Luke Dias (coach), Laxman Prasad Bastola (manager) and Pradip Kumar Karki (assistant manager).