“This event is of great importance to us as this not only develops and promotes cricket here but also help in establishing Nepal on the cricketing map and also from tourism perspective,” Binaya Raj Pandey, the CAN president, said.
Haridas KK, the ACC event executive, told journalists at a press conference organized on the eve of the event that this time it would be clear. “There will be no complications, there will not be any age problems,” he said referring to the ACC’s procedure for age-verification.
ACC asked all participating nations to send in x-rays of all players and a panel of three medical experts examined them and send back the list of players with ‘legible age’ to the national boards to pick a team from.
Haridas KK, Binaya Raj Pandey and Tanka Paneru during the press conference.Dipesh Shrestha
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However, the memories of ACC U-15 Elite Cup in 2007 left behind scars. ACC Development Committee concluded that it is not possible to verify the age for the U-15 and U-17 levels and scrapped both events in favor of U-16.
Tanka Paneru, CAN general secretary, informed that Nepal had complied with all the ACC guidelines and picked up a team with no risk of ‘age-verification problems’. “We have taken no risk policy and the event hopefully will not face any problem,” Paneru said.
For Nepal, it is not only a chance to be a successful host but also an opportunity to showcase young talents. For the country that has remained a powerhouse at age-group level among non-Test nations in Asia, it will be sad to go into history without a U-17 title.
Nepal has participated in four U-17 events without any success till now. Actually no non-Test nation has won it as the earlier three editions also featured Test nations while the fourth one, that was played only between non-Test nations, was called off during semifinals.
“We have a good team and they have worked hard,” Pandey said adding that he would go by coach Roy Dias’ words to say that Nepal would perform very good.
Dias, the inspirational coach for Nepal, told myrepublica.com that he ‘would be disappointed if the team fails to win’. “We put the team in closed-camp training under Dias for one-and-half months, and we are strong contender for the title,” Paneru added.
The event will be hosted at three venues, TU Cricket Ground, Institute of Engineering Ground and Birendra Sainik Awasiya Mahavidyalaya Ground. “We have prepared all venues,” Paneru said.
CAN has instituted a main organizing committee, seven sub-committees, and three venue teams for successful organization of the event. The total budget for the event is estimated at Rs. 8,700,000.
The tournament kicks off on Wednesday with Bahrain taking on Kuwait at TU, Nepal locking horns against Qatar at IOE and Singapore and Hong Kong competing at BSAM.
