Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) have announced the appointment of high-profile coach, Dav Whatmore, as the head coach for the men’s national squad. The position was vacant after the departure of Umesh Patwal in February 2020, when Nepal hosted Oman and USA in their CWC League 2 matches at home.
Dav Whatmore is a well-known individual in the coaching world, having guided Sri Lanka to their maiden Cricket World Cup in the 1996 edition and has also held various coaching stints with national team’s of Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. This will not be the first time Whatmore will interact with the Nepal’s national squad players, as he had conducted an 11-day training camp in January 2017, when he was invited by Bat and Ball Foundation for the same.
Whatmore’s manager Kaustav Lahiri said “Dav is extremely keen to take this new challenge as he strongly believes Nepal has some great talent and has a very bright future in cricket. Nepal is a beautiful country and Dav is looking forward to have his new challenge with a bunch of young talent in Nepal.” Whatmore’s availability will depend upon his travel scenarios, as due to travel restrictions and the COVID-19 protocols, he is not travelling to India to take up the position of Baroda Cricket Association (BCA) head coach for the 2021 domestic season, which begins in January 2021 with Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.
Now with him taken up the position of head coach for Nepal, that appointment made by BCA eight months ago will have to be considered as null and void, depending upon the contractual obligations and cancellation terms. In the past couple of seasons, Whatmore was in charge of the Ranji Team for Kerala Cricket Association and also took up the charge of Singapore National squad for a brief period of time, during the ACC Eastern Region T20 in March 2020.
CAN also announced that the appointment of Raunaq Bahadur Malla as the General Manager, Ramesh Kumar Neupane as the Chief Finance Officer and Binod Kumar Das as the Cricket Manager, effective 01st January 2021.
