Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) have announced their 16-member men’s national squad for the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Global Qualifiers in Oman from February 15th – 25th, 2022. This will be the first International assignment for Sandeep Lamichhane as Captain of Nepal men’s national squad, after some of the senior members of the team including the former Captain Gyanendra Malla were relieved from their leadership roles due to disciplinary issues.
The following 16 players have been selected for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Global Qualifiers: Sandeep Lamichhane (Captain), Kushal Bhurtel, Aasif Sheikh, Dipendra Singh Airee, Gyanendra Malla, Sharad Vesawkar, Aarif Sheikh, Karan KC, Jitendra Mukhiya, Abinash Bohora, Shahab Alam, Kushal Malla, Kamal Singh Airee, Bibek Yadav, Pradeep Airee and Lokesh BamÂ
This will be the first T20I tournament for the squad after a long gap, since they last hosted Netherlands and Malaysia in a Tri-series at home in April 2021. The players, however, have played domestic T20 competition recently during the PM Cup T20 event, held in the month of January 2022. Nepal will be competing in the 8-nation qualifiers in a bid to secure one of the two available qualification spots into the first round of 2022 Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia, for which the groupings and the schedule has been announced.
The National squad will be playing in a 4-nation T20I quadrangular series in Oman against their host’s, UAE and Ireland as part of their preparations towards the Global qualifiers. Nepal Men’s previous appearance in the T20 global showpiece event came in 2014 in Bangladesh.