Nepal spent 15 days in Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh in an all-sponsored tour arranged by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) before returning on Saturday. Apart from undergoing extended training sessions at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) Stadium, Nepal played four practice matches against HPCA XI winning two and losing as many.

Amidst a tight schedule, Nepal will now leave for England for their second phase of preparation where coach Pubudu Dassanayake wants his boys to put all their focus. “We were in a real hurry during our India tour,” Dassanayake told The Kathmandu Post after the team’s arrival in Kathmandu.

“Since we had limited time (15 days), we needed to make sure that we complete our physical fitness training, team selection and at the same time stick to our basics. It was one of our best tours in India that enabled us to do what we needed to at the initial phase of preparation. Now we have to stay focused on the tour of England,” said Dassanayake.

Nepal will play four Twenty20 practice matches against some of the renowned county clubs including Middlesex and Gloucestershire apart from undergoing training sessions in their tour England that starts from Wednesday. With four Twenty20 Internationals against the Netherlands slated for June 30 to July 3 also looming for Nepal ahead of the Qualifiers, it is on the England tour that Dassanayake is counting to do the final preparations.

“The tour of England will allow us to find the right batting combination and make amends in the mistakes that we made during the India tour. We were heavily exposed in our practice matches against HPCA XI and that was a good sign for us. The India tour has left us with a heavy task to accomplish ahead of Qualifiers,” said Dassanayake adding that the team management is cautious that his guys don’t get saturated considering the amount of matches they would play in the next 17 days.

With the beginning of the tour of England, Nepal will end up playing 10 matches – four in England, four in the Netherlands and two official warm-up games – before starting their July 9-27 Qualifiers campaign.

“We have less training sessions in England compared to the practice matches. Since, we also have T20Is against

the Netherlands, we will remain cautious that our boys don’t get burn out. We are looking forward to go with extra players so that there

will not be burden of playing matches in big numbers,” concluded the coach.

Nepal are pitted against co-hosts Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong, Namibia, the United States of America and Jersey in Group ‘A’. The two group winners will make it to the 2016 World Twenty20 in India and enter tournament semi-finals. The remaining three teams from each pool will battle for the four available berths in playoffs.