Nepal picked up the final 14-member squad for the ICC World Cricket League Championship (WCLC) seventh round matches against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) slated for December 6 and 8 at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi.

Paras Khadka will lead  the team while Gyanendra Malla will deputise him for the double header. Others in the team include Shakti Gauchan, Basant Regmi, Sharad Vesawkar, Binod Bhandari, Sompal Kami, Sagar Pun, Arif Sheikh, Karan KC, Sandeep Lamichhane, Dipendra  Singh  Airee, Dilip Nath and Lalit Bhandari. Kushal Bhurtel and Anil Kumar Sah, who were named as two of the four reserve players, will also travel to Abu Dhabi with the team. Jitendra Kumar Mukhiya and Siddhant Lohani were kept as reserves.

A selection committee headed by ICC representative Aminul Islam, Nepal head coach Jagat Tamatta and skipper Khadka made the final selection from the 20-men pool. Veteran allrounder Mehboob Alam and Saurabh Khanal had already pulled out of the training camp due to injuries.

Nepal are already out of the qualifying race after their sixth round results against the hosts Hong Kong in October. Only top four in the eight-team tournament are assured of places in the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers. Even if Nepal beat the UAE in both the final round games, they cannot catch Hong Kong, who currently occupy the fourth place with a round to go. The Netherlands and Papua New Guinea have already secured their berths for the World Cup Qualifiers set for next year in Zimbabwe. The last two spots are still up for the grabs from the final round matches.

Irrespective of the results in Abu Dhabi, relegated Nepal will now play in World Cricket League (WLC) Division 2 in Namibia next year where they look to make it to the final for a place in the Qualifiers. Canada, Oman, Nepal, Namibia and the UAE along with another relegated team from the WCLC will make the six-team Division 2.

Nepal had finished fourth in the Division 2 in Namibia two years ago but the International Cricket Council (ICC) had handed them a chance to compete in the WCLC Division 1 tournament after Ireland and Afghanistan joined the 10 full members in the ranking-based qualification system for the 2019 World Cup.