The national team will look to repeat the success of the ICC World Cricket Twenty20 held in Bangladesh where they had defeated their archrivals for the one and only time in the shorter version of the game.

As draw has looked favourable for Nepal, it gives the cricketers a golden opportunity to take one step closer to a medal that has so far eluded the country in South Korea. Nepal have not been able to win a single medal in any discipline so far.

Afghanistan have fielded an experimental side for the Games as a majority of their first string players are currently undergoing ICC High Performance Programme in Australia for the 2015 World Cup. If Nepal go through from their match on Wednesday, they will probably fix a date with familiar opponents Hong Kong in the semi-finals. Considering the familiarity with the opponents and the recent head-to-head results, Nepal will keep their fingers crossed in Incheon.  

Skipper Paras Khadka was anxious to gift the nation an Asian medal to add to the merry making of festival Dashain but he choses to hold himself back. “Hopes are high on us but the time has not yet come for us to claim that we will end up winning medal,” said Khadka. “We have the possibility but that alone is not enough. We need to go out on the field and beat Afghanistan to make that happen.” Khadka said Afghanistan are very strong opponents. “Afghanistan have been playing high-level cricket but that does not mean we are extremely weak. We just need to be cautious against them,” explained the skipper.

Afghanistan will also be Nepal’s first real test in Incheon where they had cruised to the quarter-finals without much of fuss in the league stages. Nepal had hammered Kuwait by nine wickets in the Group ‘B’ opener and beaten Maldives by seven wickets on Sunday. With both teams in a do-or-die situation, the quarter-final is going to be a different story for Nepal. Skipper Khadka is aware of the Afghans strategy and added the team was all set to take on them.

Taekwondo disappoints Nepali contingent

INCHEON:  Taekwondo, a discipline which has been saving Nepal’s blushes in the past, failed to lift the gloom in Nepali camp with a disastrous start in the 17th Asian Games on Tuesday.

On the opening day of the discipline, Yan Kumari Chaulagain crashed to a shocking 2-7 defeat to Malaysia in the women’s below-49kg weight category. Chaulagain went neck-to-neck in the first round but her opponent cruised to a 6-1 lead in second. Chaulagain did manage to level the third round on 1-1 but a defeat was already written on the cards. She earned her both points through penalty.

In the men’s below-74kg weight category, Lebanon were announced the winners after injured Sakshyam Karki did not show up for the bout. Karki had sustained injury during a training session in Korea. He is currently undergoing treatment. Neema Gurung joined the huge group of Nepali players who dumped out in the first round losing her women’s 53kg bout against Chinese Taipei 0-12. Gurung was outplayed in the second round where she conceded 10 points. She conceded one point either side of the second round.

Amar Lal Malla and Purushottam Bajracharya had produced a rare feat in table tennis by defeating Mongolia in their round of 64 men’s doubles match but couldn’t repeat their performance on Tuesday.

The Nepali duo won the first set 11-6 but threw away the match losing the next three sets 5-11, 8-11, 10-12 to India in the round of 32. The pair of Shiva Sundar Gothe and Ajay Suwal lost the match against higher ranked China in straight sets with the score of 11-3 in all three sets.   

In soft tennis, Kamal Bahadur Bhandari lost both of his preliminary matches in the men’s singles category. He lost 0-4 against Jhang Yuseng in the first match and lost the second with the same scoreline against Philippines.

Manoj Subba came up with the best performance among the Nepali players. After suffering a 4-0 loss against Kastura Takuya of Japan in the first set, Subba improved his performance in the second match against Tajikistan winning 4-0. In the women’s singles, Neeru Kayastha went down 2-4 against Vietnam and 0-4 against Philippines in the second match. (PR)