Nepal, which reached the World Cup by winning seven of its last eight Twenty20 Internationals, failed to perform as expected against the United States in the first match of League 2, which is considered the basis for the ODI World Cup qualifiers.
What you should know
Nepal, which failed to perform as expected in its first match against the United States, will face the UAE on Wednesday in the World Cup League 2 Cricket. These two teams, who are the top teams in the Asian region in Associate Cricket, are at the bottom of League 2.
Nepal, which reached the World Cup by winning 7 of its last eight Twenty20 Internationals, could not perform accordingly against the United States in the first match of League 2, which is considered the basis for the One-Day World Cup qualifiers. Chasing a target of 263 runs, the Nepal team's batting showed restraint and the team was all out for 156 runs. Nepali batting has been criticized for not being able to change its style of Twenty20.
Nepal is in seventh place with 12 points from 17 matches in the eight-nation tournament. The UAE is in a similar situation. The team is at the bottom with only 6 points after losing 14 of its 17 matches. The United States, on the other hand, is at the top of the table and has collected 32 points from 22 matches.
Nepal will still have hopes of staying in the top four and securing a direct entry into the One-Day Internationals when they face the UAE. But for that, Nepal will have to improve its batting significantly. Nepal has won all its last 5 matches against the UAE. One of those matches was in Dubai.
Nepal played the USA at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. Nepal will play all three of its upcoming matches at the ICC Academy. The last time Nepal played an ODI at this ground was in 2019, when captain Paras Khadka scored a century, which was the first century by a Nepali player in an ODI.
UAE is a completely new team. Players like Vritya Aravind, Asif Khan, Aryan Larka, Ayan Afzal Khan are not in the UAE team. In the last match, which was lost to the USA by 4 wickets, UAE made the ODI debuts of Harshit Kaushik, Haider Ali, Mohammad Rohid, Mohammad Shahdad and Shoaib Khan.
