By Chiran Poudel:
Tribhuwan International Airport had a fantastic environment on Tuesday; the day of arrival of ICC Div 4 champs. Not to mention the welcome was no less warmer than the arrival of World’s leading personality in soccer Sepp Blatter. The boys had better of every team in the tournament.
I very much liked the portion of a comment in the Nepali Cricket Fan’s page “Every day a new hero was born”. Yes very much true each game was better played and every game saw a new hero rising through the horizon. Be it Airee’s heroics where Singapore threatened early after taking 5/47, be it Das’s splendid catch that did the match and perhaps the catch of the tournament or be it Basant’s unplayable left arm off spin. Every game had a different flavor. Boy’s had a great tournament and nonethless it was a great team effort too.
Anyway it’s very much a history. No body expected this huge but the hope of being qualified was always there. History is history, bitter or sweet. Now there’s a problem as to most of the fans and cricket official may be unaware. This is not the first time the boys ever achieved a success. Calling this success huge will quite be an exaggeration. Rest of the world knows how huge it was when someone from this little country to their amuse, claimed 10 wickets. Gaining victory over South African’s and Pakistani took at the junior level; thanks to the fellow countrymen. Government did not celebrate that triumphant victory that brought the accolades and the attention it got of the cricketing fraternity. But this time around we are celebrating like anything. Plenty of articles are getting published on leading daily nationals about the heroics of our boys. Likewise, Government of Nepal, including other political party leaders, for the first time are giving a warm reception to our players.
The question is why not? This is for sure the stepping stone of the cricket’s next generation. But the question is, is there anyone around in our team like in other nation(Sports Psychologist) that can take care of the jetlag of the success or say that can tell “Hey boys we had a great run in the tournament but come on; move on it was just another tournament and focus on the next series”? There’s the problem the overnight success can get anyone carried away. The lust it has around this time, not to mention the media creating the hype may hang on for a longer time to go. With the next series not too far away, just a mere 20 or so days our boys need to focus, focus and focus. There may be players who have got this huge for the first time may specially be looked after and be told the correct thing and the thing is “Hey this is the beginning; we are here to achieve more!”. Else the talent might be wasted in the lust and the recovery may take more.
Success in the tournaments like this may be illusive.
Come on it’s the division 4 it is not the division 1. Nothing extra huge is achieved but we are on the right track. For sure the nation will love it’s boys as they have given them the opportunity to smile after a long time and talk about it but the heck is the requiredness of the controlled celebration by the boys. Real test say it the litmus test will be next month when the ACC trophy will be played with the likes of Afghanistan and UAE. Critics can sometime bring positive for you and this time around it’s for the Nepalese team because with the success they had there is the added responsibility to do good at the next month’s tournament.
Let’s wait and seee and hope for the good to come.
