Cricket; This is the word everyone loves to hear in the beautiful mountainous country. Whenever Nepali cricket team plays, the biggest festival for fans starts. The majority of this festival is concentrated on men’s cricket team. There is no doubt that cricket has achieved great heights on this himalayan nation. Fans have never stopped supporting the beloved team no matter how the result goes. Luckily for us, we have had more proud moments than those on which we had our heads down. Now, we have another proud moment. This time it’s our turn to shift our focus to women’s cricket.
Nepal being a predominantly agricultural society, the senior female member have played a commanding role within the family by controlling resources, making crucial planting and harvesting decisions, and determining the expenses and budget allocations. Yet women’s lives have remained centered on their traditional roles —taking care of most household chores, fetching water and animal fodder, and doing farm work. Their standing in society is still mostly contingent on their husbands’ and parents’ social and economic positions. They have often been considered inferior to men’s on our conservative society. But, when it comes to giving and getting an opportunity, Nepali women’s rarely fail to produce proud moments for the entire nation. Nepali women’s cricket team is the recent example of it. Nepali women’s cricket team have qualified for Asia cup to be hosted later this year in Thailand.
Nepali team did miss out on a chance to feature on ICC women’s world cup qualifiers but they didn’t miss out a chance to get featured on the Asia cup. Playing Asia Cup itself is a big achievement for Nepali angels. Nepal finished second on the points table behind Thailand to secure a place for Asia Cup-2016. Nepal will feature on the tournament along with hosts Thailand and test playing nations India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Talking about the tournament, Nepal lost opening two matches against Hong Kong and Thailand before standing out on the top against China and Hong Kong. Nepal then again lost against Thailand before beating China again on the last match and securing a place in Asia Cup-2016. In a lackluster batting display throught the tournament by Nepal, Nary Thapa was the highest run scorer with 111 runs to her account. Karuna Bhandari took 9 wickets, the highest for Nepal.
The team prepared very few days for the tournament. Nepali cricket is full of uncertainties right now. Facing a ban from ICC, the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) doesn’t receive funding from ICC. We have a poor domestic structure. The recent Everest premier League (EPL) set a platform to perform for men’s cricket team but when we talk about the women’s cricket team, the situation is more scary. Women’s are often forgotten after playing some days of International cricket. They don’t have domestic structure to improve their skills and a platform to perform. There is no financial appeal for female cricketers on our country. They have been making us proud but they have often been ignored by the government and the cricket board. Looking at the facilities they get, this achievement is very big. The situation of Nepali women cricket is very poor though. They play some International matches in a year and then they are lost again. They are not given proper coaching for rest of the time. They work on their own. Those women’s work harder and harder day by day on their own. They work hard themselves to improve their techniques and they go to international stage with those skills and perform well.
Till now they have not reached to the biggest stage yet to perform but this Asia Cup may be a perfect opportunity for Nepalese angels to show what they have and what they can do. Playing against Test nations is a great opportunity for them and a moment to remember for the entire nation. This is a big stage for Nepal where the entire nation will be behind them. Nepalese women are surely not at the level of those test playing nations but if provided with enough competitive matches and proper coaching facilities, they can compete with the best. The nation must help to improve their cricket standards and life standards as well. The financial boosts to women cricket may attract young girls to playing cricket for the nation. We may have even brighter future at women’s cricket if it happens.
Fans have alwayas been supportive and must always be ready to support and raise voices for them. Being the 12th player of the team fans support mean a lot for our angels. They are gift for our nation and the government must improve them rather than ignoring them for the entire year(excluding the time of International cricket). For now, It’s time for us to celebrate this achievement. The big stage is awaiting Nepalese women’s and let’s hope they grab this with both hands and perform their very best with the skills they have. Let’s hope this rise to the big stage will force the government to provide more facilities to the women team.
An article by Shishir Parajuli