The Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) yet again failed to host the U-19 National Tournament quashing dreams of aspiring cricketers to represent their country at international arena.

Nepal are playing a crucial ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifiers in Malaysia, slated for October 14-23 but despite coach Jagat Tamatta’s call to bring in

few more players in the side, the cricket governing body has chosen not to hold the selection tournament.

CAN has now gone one year without hosting any district, regional or national tournament in U-19 age-group. It last hosted the U-19 National Cricket Tourna-ment in September 2014, an event won by Region 6 (Baitadi).

Most of the players in the current U-19 team come from the team that also played for Nepal in the previous ACC U-19 Premier that was held in Kuwait in 2014. CAN also did not organise any selection tournament for this year’s ACC U-19 Premier, calling few hand-picked players from different regions before announcing the final 14-member squad.

CAN Acting General Secretary Uttam Karmacharya said there were several reasons for not being able to host the tournament but ended up giving an immature statement. “One of the reasons, we didn’t host any selection tournament is that we failed to find any new talent after the last closed-camp of the team,” said Karmacharya.

“Primarily, it is the current political situation of the country because we are not able to hold district and regional selection tournaments due to disturbances. Secondly, we are running out of time to complete the procedures for the tournament,” said Karmacharya. “We were supposed to send a list of 18 players to the ICC by August 31 but we failed. We asked for another 10-day time and hosting a tournament under these circumstances will just delay the process,” added the acting general secretary.

CAN has been unable to come up with a lengthy domestic schedule as the cricketers are left to depend on few matches to sneak their way into the national team. In the last one year, CAN could only host three national tournaments: Senior National Cricket Tournament in March, Women’s National Cricket Tournament in February and Prime Minister Cup Women’s National Cricket Tournament in June.

The Prime Minister Cup was sponsored by the government.

The last time Nepal went for the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifiers—held in Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland—the senior cricketers were also hand picked without any selection event.

Karmacharya said CAN is preparing to send the U-19 cricketers to India to prepare for the upcoming U-19 World Cup Qualifiers where only one team out of five countries will make it to the 2016 U-19 World Cup.

The cricket governing body of Nepal has already started the closed camp training with a participation of 24 players and will finally the 14-member squad by Friday or Saturday.