Kathmandu – The wait is almost over for Nepal to debut its first Twenty20 International Series from Wednesday as they will play three T20I matches against Hong Kong in Dambulla, Sri Lanka. This is Nepal’s first bilateral international series. Hong Kong on the other hand had their first bilateral series(although ODI) against PNG in Australia a week ago.
International Cricket Council (ICC) on June 28, granted T20 International status to Nepal to be effective from October 1 after their good performance in the ICC World Twenty World Cup held in Bangladesh earlier this year. They won two matches and lost one against Bangladesh Although on equal points with the host Bangladesh only moved to the second round of the tournament based on better NRR.
After the decision from ICC, Asian Cricket Council (ACC) decided to fund Nepal and Hong Kong tour of Sri Lanka under a high performance programme- including two first class matches against Sri Lanka Select XI is also part of the high performance program. The national team then flew to Sri Lanka on 9th November for a 18 days tour. They have already played the two three-day matches in which they lost against Kurunegala XI and drawn the match against Sri Lanka Combined XI.
Nepal will play now their three matches on November 19, 20 and 22 respectively. All these matches will be played at Dambulla from 10:15 AM NST onwards.
