The ICC’s representatives and Nepali cricket stakeholders took part in a meeting that lasted close to six hours at the Solit Hotel.
Elected committee President Chatur Bahadur Chand and General Secretary Ashok Nath Pyakurel are the members of the Nepal Advisory Group, while Binod Chaudhary and Binay Raj Pandey are the co-convenors of the committee, and former CAN acting president Deepak Koirala, former national team skipper Pawan Agrawal, NSC Press Advisor Rohit Dahal are the other officials.
Election Commissioner of the Union, Chitur Bahadur Chand and General Secretary Ashok Nath Pyakurel had laid a stand for amending only five points in the new constitution, which has become a hindrance and the meeting on Sunday ended without much positive conclusion.
ICC delegation led by Imran Khawaja however sounded hopeful that the current suspension of CAN could get lifted if everything falls in place before ICC Annual General Meeting in Jun 2018.
“The discussion was about to try and to reach an agreement and the steps to be taken so that the ICC’s suspension of Nepal could be lifted,” Khwaja told The Himalayan Times after close to a six-hour meeting. “There is ICC Board Meeting and Annual Conference in June and if the board members agree on the resolution then Nepal’s suspension will be lifted. If everything goes wrong, then we cannot do that.”
“The most important thing was to try and agree to the statute that would be agreeable to all the stakeholders of Nepal. And we have come to some sort of principal agreement and we will have the draft shortly. We are optimistic that we can arrive to a conclusion to this. The fate of Nepali cricket is in the hands of Advisory Committee. If everything goes well through the committee, I am optimistic about lifting the suspension,” added Khwaja.
If a consensus is not reached on the matter, then ICC may have to follow the same route as what was done with USA Cricket and expel CAN from their membership and hold fresh elections along the lines of constitution passed by ICC.
