Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, January 4

The Under-17 squad is leaving for India on Monday to take part in the forthcoming Asia Cup cricket tournament to be held from January 13-27 in four cities of India.

Nepal is in Group A and will take on Malaysia in the first match of the tournament on January 13, while they are scheduled to play against Qatar on January 14. Both the matches will be played at Vishakapatnam. After the withdrawl of Brunei, Nepal will get a four-day rest before playing in the second round, if they qualify.

Nepal need to win both the matches to advance to the second round where they will be joined by Group D winner and Test playing nations India and Pakistan. The second round matches will be held in Bangalore.

Kishor Bahadur Singh, member secretary of National Sports Council and Jai Kumar Nath Shah, president of CAN, bid farewell to the players and wished them luck.

Coach Roy Luke Dias sounded optimistic about the chances of the team. " We have three new comers — Angel Acharya, Dan Bahadur and Antim Thapa — in the team, but we also have players who can turn the match at any moment." Dias had a special word for Mahesh Chhetri, Paras Khadka and Sharad Vesawkar saying these players are match winners on their day.

Skipper Paras Khadka was also confident and said that the team was strong as some of them including himself had already played in international tournaments. Four of the squad — Khadka, Sharad, Irfan Siddiqui and Raj Shrestha — were the members of Nepal Under-19 team that won Youth Asia Cup in Karachi in 2003.

"This time we had training for more than two months and I hope we will give good results in this tournament," said Khadka.

SQUAD: Paras Khadka (captain), Sarad Vesawkar (vice captain), Raj Shrestha, Bantu Bataju, Mahesh Chhetri, Deepak Shrestha, Irfan Siddiqui, Diwas Thakuri, Amrit Pokhrel, Dhan Bahadur Chhetri, Pawan Das, Sunil Bista, Antim Thapa and Angel Acharya, Amrit Shumsher Thapa (team manager), Lekh Bahadur Chhetri (assistant manager), Samson Jung Thapa (assistant coach) and Sirish Upadhyaya (umpire).