KATHMANDU: The Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) today announced the 18-member squad for the 11th South Asian Games (SAG) cricket tournament.

Gyanendra Malla, who led the Nepal Under-19 team to the ICC Under-19 World Cup in Mallaysia earlier this year, was named the skipper of the SA Games team. Apart from Malla, Amrit Bhattarai, Binod Bhandari, Naresh Budhayer and Chandra Saud were included in the squad directly as they were in the 18-member squad of the ACC Twenty20 Cup held in the United Arab Emirates last month. The National Selection Committee headed by Arun Kumar Aryal had called 28 players for the preliminary camp for the January 29 to February 9 tournament to be held in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka next year. The CAN added three more players — Lokendra Chand, Subash Khakurel and Sunil Shah — in the camp.

Of the three players, Chand and Khakurel found their places in the final 18 for the Under-21 tournament, while Shah failed to make the cut. Lal Bahadur Adhikari was ruled out of the tournament after the left arm spinner broke his finger while trying to take a return catch of Rom Shrestha during a practice match.

Others who found their places in the 18-man squad included Prithu Baskota, Rupesh Srivastav, Bhuvan Karki, Anil Kumar Mandal, Akash

Gupta, Amit Shrestha, Rom Shrestha, Pradeep Sapkota, Pradeep Airee, Anupam Singh and

Sagar Pun. The selection committee picked the players as per their performance in the camp, where the players played six practice matches that concluded last Thursday.