A chance before the World Cup

Both Nepal and West Indies will play two matches in the series before announcing their final squads. So these two matches will be important for both the teams before the final team is declared.

Regular West Indies captains Rovman Powell, Andre Russell, Nicholas Pooran, Kyle Meyers, Serfan Rutherford, Romario Safford, Alzari Joseph and Simran Hetmer are playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL), while former captain Jason Holder is playing English county cricket. . Apart from that, the match with Nepal is an opportunity for everyone else to be part of the West Indies team in the World Cup.

'The series with Nepal is an opportunity for our players to prepare for the World Cup, our selectors have said that there are still two spots in the West Indies World Cup squad,' said West Indies captain Roston Chase, 'so for our players and Nepali players in the World Cup. There is an opportunity to be selected.

There is a provision that all teams should submit the final team to the ICC by May 1 (Wednesday). Before that, Nepal and West Indies 'A' are competing in the first two matches on Saturday and Sunday. Nepal announced a 16-member team including Arif Sheikh on Thursday. There is a provision that there should be 15 member players in the World Cup.

However, Nepal made 20 members by adding Vinod Bhandari, Lokesh Bam, Sagar Dhakal and Kamal Singh Airi to their team on Friday. Nepal's head coach Monty Desai gave a diplomatic answer by saying 'one ball battle' to the question about the final list of players.

If we look at the West Indies 'A' team, Nepal seems to have to face a big challenge. In the West Indies team, the West Indies 'A' team has players like Johnson Charles, Fabian Allen, Andre Fletcher, Hayden Walls, Alick Athanajye, Kimo Paul, Osane Thomas. West Indies coach Floyd Reifer said they are aware of Nepal.

'We watched Nepal play against the West Indies in the World Cup qualifiers last year, Nepal played well, Nepal has talented players, we will not consider anyone weak,' former West Indies national player Reifer said, 'I expect it to be a good series. '

West Indies defeated Nepal by 110 runs in the World Cup qualifier in Zimbabwe. After Arif Sheikh scored 63 runs while replying to West Indies' 339-7, Nepal was bowled out for 238 runs in 49.4 overs.

Playing West Indies A before the World Cup will be a big opportunity for Nepal. Especially in Oman, there is a chance to improve their weakness before the World Cup after their disappointing performance in the ACC Premier Cup a week ago.

Nepal, who won all four matches of the group stage, lost to UAE in the semi-finals and was eliminated from next year's Asia Cup, while losing to Hong Kong in the playoff match for the third place, they were also eliminated from the ACC Emerging Cup in November.

We are disappointed with Oman's performance. In the group stage match, we were getting everything, but after losing in the semi-final, the disappointment increased," Nepal's captain Rohit Paudel said, "Forgetting all this, we had to play well for the third place. However, it was not good either. As a batting unit we did not play well. Forget about that now, we are excited about the series against West Indies. All ready for your best day. If we look at the condition of Kirtipur, it is helpful for batting, our bowling unit should be more agile.'

West Indies is a two-time Twenty20 World Cup champion. This is the first time any West Indies team has visited Nepal. West Indies is the fourth Test team to come to Kathmandu to play the Nepali national team. Pakistan's cricket academy team came in 2008 and played three 50-over matches against Nepal. Last year Zimbabwe 'A' and last month Ireland 'A' played against Nepal.

Nepal coach Desai was West Indies' batting consultant for three years. He was in the West Indies before becoming the coach of Nepal in February last year. He said that the last two games, which were defeated in Oman, cannot speak for the image of Nepal.

The cricket history of West Indies is very big, after coming to the 50-over cricket structure, they won the World Cup twice, they have made their image in the Twenty-20 also and have become the world champions twice. We know how West Indies dominated Test cricket. We used to respect them a lot while growing up," Desai said. "There is definitely competition in this game, but we have taken this series as an opportunity to boost our confidence rather than the result."