With Anil Mandal joining the team in place of injured Avinash Karn the problem of managing the available players during the World Cup will be a problem for coach Pubudu Dassanayake. Injuries has long been a major headache for the team with Nepal suffering a blow during the ICC World Cup Qualifier in New Zealand earlier in the year when opener Subash Khakurel fell ill and captain Paras Khadka picked up side strain. That resulted into Nepal finishing lowly ninth in the 10-team Qualifier.

All rounder Prithu Baskota, who missed the World Twenty20 Qualifier in Dubai once again picked up injury in the last match against Uganda in New Zealand and was later ruled out of the T20 World Cup. Prithu was then replaced by Amrit Bhattarai. To allow players enough time to recuperate from the their injury the team management had kicked off the preparation for the World Cup a week later than scheduled.

Despite the injury concerns,  Dassanayake says he is less worried about his bench strength. “There is no point worrying about something you can not control,” the Nepali coach said.

He added it was natural that his players picked up injuries having played competitive cricket throughout the year. “It is normal for players to sustain injuries. But the problem  is the lack of proper sports medical facilities.”  

Big teams start to arrive

DHAKA: With the official warm-up matches for the team drawn for the preliminary round over on Friday, heavyweight Test-playing nations started to arrive here in Dhaka.

New Zealand, India and Pakistan landed here on Friday. With preliminary round matches scheduled for Chittagong, six Associate members including Nepal and  the two bottom ranked Test-playing nations Zimbabwe and Bangladesh were heading for Chittagong.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) hosted an opening ceremony of the ICC World Twenty20 on Thursday with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declaring the event open.

Similarly, Nepal’s Embassy in Dhaka hosted a welcome programme for the national cricket team on Thursday.