As the Nepal Premier League (NPL) 2024 comes to an end, its good points will be discussed. And the bad aspects will also be listed. What has really been the best part of this year's NPL? The straight answer would be, the immense support of the audience.

Not only the support, but the spectators who reached the TU cricket ground and watched the match. Spectators who have paid more to watch cricket. There was a kind of fear before the start of the competition, maybe there would be no audience?

NPL scorer Paras Khadka was claiming that the audience will enjoy it. "There will be good income from the audience," he said. Needless to say, this is what happened. Barring a few exceptions, almost all the matches have been attended till now. In the next few days, all the matches of the league stage will be completed. Which team will reach the play-offs with this game? That will determine. So these games will have more excitement. If there is no cricket match, accounting is necessary, to say exactly which team is where.

So yes, to make cricket more exciting. The final will be held on December 6. Before that there will be three play off games, one eliminator. And two qualifiers. These games aren't exactly knockouts, but they're close. So it can be easily guessed, there is no shortage of viewers in these games. The final will be even more different. By the time all 32 games are over, the figures on how many spectators have bought tickets will probably be out.

Now the question is, why so many viewers really like NPL? We can do this much analysis now. There are only three games in Nepal where people can buy tickets. The first was football. The history of crowds of spectators who come to watch football at Dasharath Stadium is old. Then the next game was volleyball. In recent times, volleyball has never lacked viewers. Volleyball was played in Kadarv Hall. And this is cricket.

NPL has proved to be a milestone in the history of Nepali cricket, due to the passion of the audience. Based on international experience, football and cricket audiences are often different. It is also said that the birthplace of both football and cricket is in England, those who watch cricket do not watch football, those who watch football do not watch cricket. Does this fact also apply in Nepal? We don't have the answer. It can be guessed, probably the same is happening in Nepal. If

is to focus on the audience of cricket again, this time the audience did not come suddenly in the NPL, the basis for this was being prepared for the last few years. First, this is not the first franchise league in Nepal. Again, the Indian Premier League (IPL) held in India is not new to the Nepali audience. How are these franchise leagues played? How does the player auction work? Everyone was already aware of these facts.

Many people must fondly remember that time, when Nepal's position became miserable in the last ICC Cricket World Cup League-2 2019-2023. There was fear that Nepal's one-day recognition would be taken away. Right then, Rohit Paudel was appointed as the captain of the Nepalese team. And the coach became, Monty Desai. The pair of them brought great success to Nepal in international cricket. This has deepened the audience's fascination with Nepali cricket.

Otherwise, the spectators have not come to the TU ground before this. During that difficult time, Nepali viewers stopped watching cricket by going to TU. The audience could be counted by hand. He probably didn't buy a ticket either. At that time, the same captain Rohit was asked, when will the cricket-loving audience come back in droves? He gave a very precise answer to that, 'Whenever Nepali cricket starts to enjoy international success, the audience will increase.'

happened exactly like this. Nepal did not only do well in that league-two, they won one match after another in a series that was unbelievable. It was at this time that Nepal also qualified for the T-20 World Cup. And during that World Cup held in America and West Indies, Nepal's performance remained good. And Nepal also played against countries like India and Pakistan in Asia Cup. Therefore, Nepali sports were gradually getting ready to watch and understand cricket in large numbers.

Although the structure of domestic cricket in Nepal is weak, but in the meantime international cricket has been going on one after the other recently. Month after month, one cricket after another, in our country. In this way, the audience also started to get used to watching cricket. It should be disrupted in a continuous cricket series, fearing losing the audience. In other words, the audience flees. Experience says that if cricket is regular, the audience will also be regular.

Nepal also played T-20 World Cup in Bangladesh in 2014. Besides that, spectators used to reach TU in special competitions at that time, that too in good numbers. Later, Nepali cricket got caught up in controversy and confusion, the game itself went downhill. Cricket loving audience lost. This time, there is definitely more audience than expected, the reason for this is the extreme discussion that this competition has received.

There are eight teams in the NPL, they did their best promotion since a month before the start of the tournament. For that, Facebook's Reel and even Tiktok have done a lot of work for that. Moreover, social media also helped to increase the popularity of NPL. And it's just that Nepali sports have not been able to do much in international sports, otherwise there has never been a shortage of spectators who love sports, especially in cricket.

International Cricket Council (ICC) is a fact that almost everyone has accepted that Nepali cricket has never lacked supporters. Let's not say more. That is why international cricket is convinced of Nepal. What is being discussed internationally is that the popularity of cricket is not as much as it is in Nepal, even in some countries that have Test recognition. Apart from England, Australia and India, where are the cricket fans? Not yet.

However, there are viewers in Nepal. That is why many foreign players have repeatedly said that the presence of spectators in Nepal makes the cricket game itself different and fun. It is interesting for the players too, to go and play in a full stadium. However, not all players are lucky, so they are forced to play in front of empty spectators. Nepalese players are lucky in this matter. This time NPL has proved even more, you have to know how to play the game, the audience will come.