CAN, Zohra reach agreement – Nepal Premiere League likely to start mid-April

The Cricket Association of Nepal and Zohra Sports Management have reached a final agreement on the outstanding issues of the inaugural Nepal Premiere League. Mr Tanka Aangbuhang, the president of CAN, has said that CAN will be the organizers of the NPL while Zohra Sports will be in charge of event management. This has cleared the way for Nepal’s first premium sports league to go ahead after it was in doubt for some time due to dissatisfaction from within CAN as well as the ACC that the tournament had not been under the ownership of CAN.

Mr Aangbuhang insisted there was never any doubt about the NPL taking place. “We were always positive about this tournament and there was no question of it not happening. We just wanted to fine-tune the management issues”, Mr Aangbuhang said. Aangbihang further explained that CAN took the time it took to ensure it covered all the necessities for the tournament to meet the standards of the ACC and ICC. “The CAN, in addition to organizing the on-field tournament, will also carefully monitor and manage other things like facilities provided for the players, including the lodging facilities, financial transactions and so on.”

One of the major issues the ACC raised was if NPL could be made free from match fixing, doping and other such issues and Aangbuhang said a special committee would be responsible to monitor these events.  ”CAN will form a special committee to monitor and prevent such acts and ensure the NPL remains clean from the start.” He also added that a formal contract would be signed very soon.
DSC 0297 copy CAN, Zohra reach agreement Nepal Premiere League likely to start mid April

File Photo: A new-look Fapla Cricket Ground will host the 2-day matches of the NPL 2013

“I am here for Nepali Cricket and it is my aim to try and develop Nepali Cricket as much as possible.” said Zohra Sports Management chief and former national player Aamir Akhtar, when asked if he was happy with CAN taking the tournament responsibility from them. The NPL, a tournament with 6 privately owned teams, is scheduled to follow the originally planned format of 2-day, 50-over and T20 matches to be held in Dhangadhi, Rajbiraj and Kathmandu respectively, in that order. Mr Akhtar said the fixtures of the 2014 NPL would be released in a couple of days.

Though the NPL is an exciting prospect, CAN was not getting ahead of themselves and planned to organize the national tournaments as before, Aangbuhang said. He also said the CAN would now work in a “new way” and focus on making the players able to survive on just cricket and build proper infrastructures among other things. “We aim to build at least 4 international standard stadiums and one domestic stadium in each region. We will also focus on providing exposure for the national team and have regular tournaments for age level and women’s team. We are already  in talk with the National Sports Council and the Ministry of Sports. We will make the most of this time after the WT20.”