Himalayan News Service
Kathmandu, April 15:

Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) announced the 18-member preliminary squad for the ICC World Cricket League (WCL) Division-V tournament.
The team, selected by the National Selection Committee under Bijay Kumar Sharma, called players for the closed-camp. Binod Das has been retained the captain, and U-19 skipper Paras Khadka his deputy.
Others in the team are Paresh Lohani, Shakti Gauchan, Mehboob Alam, Sanjam Regmi, Sharad Vesawkar, Dipendra Chaudhary, Gyanendra Malla, Mahesh Chhetry, Raj Kumar Pradhan, Amrit Bhattarai, Basanta Regmi, Dhirendra Chand, Manjeet Shrestha, Pramod Basnet, Antim Thapa and Yashwant Subedi. The players were selected on the basis of their performance in the Springwood Senior One Day National League held in March-April.
Sri Lankan Roy Luke Dias is the coach and CAN General Secretary Tanka Prasad Paneru the manager. The final 14 squad for the event, to be held in Jersey from May 21-31, will be announced later.
Apart from Nepal and hosts Jersey, Afghanistan, Bahamas, Botswana, Germany, Mozambique, Norway, Singapore, the United States, Japan and Vanuata will take part in the tournament, that sends top two teams to WCL Division-IV.
The top two teams from the Division-IV — which also include Fiji, Hong Kong, Italy and Tanzania — will advance to the Division-III, where top two from Division-IV and 5th and 6th from Division-II will fight with Cayman Islands and Papua New Guinea for the two spots in the ICC World Cup qualifiers.

ACC Trophy dates out
KATHMANDU: The 2008 ACC Trophy will be played in Malaysia from July 25 to August 3. Ramesh Memon, Executive Secretary of the Malaysian Cricket Association (MCA), confirmed acceptance of the ACC’s offer to host the tournament in Kuala Lumpur, said the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) in its website.
Nepal, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and UAE will take part in the ACC Trophy. The ACC Events Executive KK Haridas said: “This is the seventh ACC Trophy and for the first time it will be played in Elite and Challenge tournaments. Malaysia is hosting the Elite; the ACC Trophy Challenge will be played most likely next January in Kuwait.” The finalists of the ACC Trophy Elite will qualify for the immediately succeeding Asia Cup where they take on Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.