More Matches For Nepali Teams A Must: Roy Dias

The Rising Nepal:- 

Roy Luke Dias, a former Sri Lankan batsman, has been coach of Nepali Cricket for seven years. He was the part of Sri Lankan team when they got their first Test victory playing against India. Dias was right there as he scored two half centuries in each of the innings of the match. He also played professional cricket for Denton St. Lawrence in Manchester, England. After retiring from active cricketing career, he took the coaching job. Recently, in a brief chat with Adarsha Dhakal, he shared his coaching experience and Nepal’s performances at various levels of international tournaments.

We are four times champion of ACC U-19 Elite Cup, but now the page has turned upside down after Nepal’s loss against Afghanistan in semifinals in Kuwait. We lost a chance to qualify for the final selection of U-19 World Cup. Do you think the defeat has signaled our fall from top spot?

We were winning a lot and losing this time was a disappointment. Those players, who played U-19 World Cup and had international experiences, let us down. We expected a lot from our bowlers but they were not up to the mark. Amrit Bhattarai, Chandra Saud, Antim Thapa, and Lal Bahadur Adhikari failed to click.

In the senior cricket we have been facing too many disappointments, losing to Afghanistan in the semi finals of World Cup qualifier at Jersey, again losing to Qatar in the quarter finals of ACC Trophy, also the qualifier for Asia Cup. Why aren’t senior cricketers able to win matches?

It’s not true that senior cricketers are not winning matches at all. If we look at World Cup qualifiers at Jersey, we were performing very well and winning eight matches simultaneously, but in the end we had one very bad day, unluckily we lost. Same thing happened in the Asian qualifiers, we won almost all of the group matches. But, a bad day again, we were out from the competition. We start winningly and have a good ride but as we pass on to the crucial stage we lose the match. Sometimes we get enough numbers of win and suddenly we lose the next time.

Why is there really no consistency in Nepali Cricket?

It’s because we are not playing frequent matches. Our senior guys played a T20 tournament in Kuwait in the month of July last year. And after that, they will be playing next international tournament, in November this year. If they get very meager amount of matches to play, then there’s no point in looking for consistency in them. Playing domestic matches doesn’t matter. If you have to go abroad or play with big teams you need to get good warm up matches against stronger sides.

Few players blamed Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) of being inactive. Do you think, CAN is inactive in generating funds and arranging matches for Nepali teams?

Well, I am just a coach, and do whatever I have been directed by CAN. If it’s about me, first I try to get adequate number of matches before we go out for any tournament. When we set out for ACC Trophy, we played three friendly matches in Sri Lanka. If it’s about having CAN arranging matches in the home ground, there’s still a doubt, since CAN is not strong with budget. To arrange matches, CAN need to generate a lot of money.

You have been the coach of Nepali Cricket team for seven years, why is there still not a pure batsman whom we can rely upon?

There are lots of batsmen who can play some good innings and come up with a very good conversion rate as well. But it’s the same problem: we are playing very few matches. Gyanendra Malla became the highest run getter in ACC U-19 Elite Cup with 237 runs. He is having a very good time with his bat scoring three half centuries in the tournament. But, when will he be playing next tournament? Yes, we’re lagging there; if he doesn’t get enough matches, he can’t carry on with his form. You can’t even expect him to make more runs ahead after such a long span of time. There are enough batsmen but not enough matches.

You talked about playing enough matches. We have India as our one of the good neighbors and their cricket has been an example in the world cricket. Why are we not getting any help from them?

There should be someone who has to speak from our side to play cricket in India. If our cricketers get enough chance to play in India, our game will no doubt improve. Indian cricket board should help Nepali cricket.

Afghanistan played cricket far later than Nepal did, but today they are now already amongst the one day status getters. What do you have to say?

If we look closely, Afghanistan’s cricket comes from Pakistan. Six of their players are from Pakistan and they also have some of the players playing in Sri Lanka. But, Nepal would not like to do that, you get two players from India, and three from Sri Lanka then you are not playing with a Nepali flag.