Kathmandu, January 25

International Cricket Council Deputy Chairman Imran Khwaja will lead the ICC delegation team to Kathmandu this week to take stock of Nepali cricket.

“A delegation from the ICC will arrive in Nepal this weekend to progress discussions aimed at enabling the reinstatement of Cricket Association of Nepal to ICC membership,” said ICC in a release. “The objective of the visit, led by ICC Deputy Chairman Imran Khwaja, is to agree on the final steps to getting Nepal’s suspension lifted and reinstated into membership of the ICC. This involves, amongst other things, the adoption of an updated constitution which all parties agree is needed to lay a solid foundation for the good governance of the sport in Nepal,” said in the release.

“Over the last 12 months, the ICC has worked closely with the Nepal Advisory Group to draft a new constitution. This was one of a number of reinstatement conditions that the ICC set CAN in May 2016. A revised version of this constitution was adopted by CAN in August last year. However, this contained significant changes to what had been previously agreed by the NAG and the ICC, meaning it did not fulfill the conditions set by the ICC,” the ICC release added.

ICC Deputy Chairman Khwaja said the Advisory Group was instrumental in building a constitution that would support the readmission of Nepal to ICC membership. “It is concerning that CAN did not adopt the constitution as proposed. In addition to this there remain a number of other reinstatement conditions outstanding that need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. We hope the meetings with CAN, the Advisory Group and government representatives will enable us to reach agreement on acceptable amendments to the constitution and agree the process for Nepal’s readmission,” Khwaja added.