Nepal captain Rohit Paudel on Tuesday called for cricketing powers India, England and Australia to tour his country to play a T20 series.<\/p>\n
Nepal came within a nail-biting single ball of one of the biggest upsets in T20 World Cup history on Sunday when they lost to Harry Brook’s England by four runs in Mumbai.<\/p>\n
Lokesh Bam could only hit a single off Sam Curran’s final delivery when he needed a six.<\/p>\n
“My message would be a warm welcome to all those teams,” Paudel said as his side prepared to face Italy in Mumbai on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“They will love in Kirtipur and Kathmandu to play against us and they will get a warm welcome in Nepal.<\/p>\n
“I think if Australia, England, India whoever comes, I think our cricket will grow and it will help to globalise the cricket more, so I think it’s very important.”<\/p>\n
Not only did the associate nation run England close on Sunday, but they lost by just one run to eventual finalists South Africa at the 2024 T20 World Cup.<\/p>\n
Paudel said the two results had raised the profile of Nepali cricket.<\/p>\n
“Against South Africa, it was the first time we came so close,” he said, adding that the “last game against England has given us a lot more spotlight”.<\/p>\n
India, Pakistan and England were all given big scares by non-Test playing nations in their first group matches.<\/p>\n
England’s Jos Buttler said Tuesday that the T20 format was a great leveller.<\/p>\n
“I think in T20 World Cups, T20 cricket, generally, the games are closer,” said Buttler.<\/p>\n
“One or two players can win games for their side on the day. So I think you’re going to see some close games of cricket.”<\/p>\n
The West Indies played a T20 series against Nepal last year, losing 2-1 and their head coach Darren Sammy said such encounters were important.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s our responsibility to grow the game in whatever way we can,” Sammy told reporters in Mumbai ahead of the next West Indies match against England on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“If that is Australia playing Nepal or India playing Nepal or West Indies playing Nepal, it is our job to help spread the game.<\/p>\n
“And if giving or playing against the associate teams gives them more exposure … I think it is only good for the game.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nepal captain Rohit Paudel on Tuesday called for cricketing powers India, England and Australia to tour his country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-471919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}