The cricket rivalry between Nepal and the United States is very strong. When the 15th series of the World Cup League 2 Cricket begins on Sunday in Dubai, UAE, the coaches of these two teams will be in the spotlight. Along with Nepal and the United States, the home team UAE will compete in this series.

Nepal and the US will face each other in the first day's match at the Dubai Cricket International Stadium. The most talked about coaches are Stuart Law and Pubudu Dassanayake. Both of them have previously been coaches of the US. But Pubudu has a very close relationship with Nepal. Pubudu probably knows more about Nepali cricket than Nepal's coach Law. 

Pubudu has been Nepal's coach for two different times and Nepal's consultant coach for two different times. He first came as Nepal's coach in 2011, and during this period Nepal played its first Twenty20 World Cup in 2014. He came to Nepal's coach for the second time at the end of 2021, but his tenure ended within 6 months. 

Pubudu was Oman's consultant coach in League 2, Nepal's tour of Canada last year, where Nepal could not win a single match. Out of the 8 teams playing in League 2, Pubudu has coached four countries. Apart from Nepal and the US, he has also coached Canada twice. 

Pubudu's relationship with Nepal is not limited to this. The first edition of the Nepal Premier League (NPL) cricket held last year was also won by the Janakpur Bolts, who are coached by Pubudu. He is the one who will be the happiest in the progress of Nepali cricket. But he will not be exempt from that when he faces Nepal on Sunday. 

Australia's Law was the coach of the United States in the World Cup held in the United States and the West Indies last year. Under Law's coaching, the United States reached the Super 'Eight' by defeating Pakistan in the Super Over. This is the seventh month that he has been coaching Nepal. But in such a short time, Nepali cricket has achieved great success. 

During the very difficult tour of Scotland, under Law's coaching, Nepal won three out of four matches against the Netherlands and the home team Scotland. This greatly helped Nepal's efforts to maintain its One-Day International status. Apart from the victory, the performance of the Nepali players was also of a high standard. 

Nepal had achieved two major successes in the training camp last month. Nepal had achieved a 2-1 victory in the 3-match Twenty20 International series against the West Indies in Sharjah, UAE. Nepal had achieved this success when it played a Twenty20 International series against a Test-recognized nation for the first time.

Immediately after, Nepal went to Oman and reached the World Cup for the third time by winning the Twenty20 Asia-East Asia Pacific Qualifier. This also broke Nepal's long drought in the International Cricket Council (ICC) competition. This was Nepal's first title since winning the Eastern Regional Tournament organized for the Asia qualifiers of the Twenty20 World Cup in Malaysia in October 2018.

Pubudu is an expert in lifting the team even in difficult times. The ICC had suspended American cricket last month. Despite repeated warnings from the ICC to improve, the US Cricket Board suspended the team after it did not listen to them. However, the team will be allowed to play the tournament. This is the first time since then that the US is playing international cricket. 

Arif Sheikh and Bhim Sarki have been playing well in the ODI format in the training camp. Arif was in the Twenty20 Asia-East Asia Pacific qualifiers in Oman. Bhim has reached the UAE for League 2. Nepal had announced a 15-member team, including Bhim, Anil Sah and Sahab Alam from the team that did not go to Oman. 

The US team, captained by Monak Patel, has players like Andrej Gauss, Sanjay Krishnamurthy, Saurabh Netrabhalkar, Samit Patel and Milind Kumar. The US is in second place in the League 2 points table with 28 points from 20 matches. Scotland is at the top with 30 points from 24 matches. Nepal is in seventh place with 12 points from 16 matches. UAE is at the bottom with 6 points from 13 matches.