Nepal WCL Division Five squad announced

Tony Munro

Nepal will be without two of its best batsmen, Paresh Lohani and Sharad Vesawkar, when it hosts the World Cricket League Division Five tournament next month.

Lohani, the 29-year-old opener, has made himself unavailable, while Vesawkar, a 21 year-old middle-order batsman, has been omitted due to what sources have described as ‘poor health and form’.

“I cannot attend the closed-camp training due to my personal reasons and I don’t think it’s fair to contend for a position in the national team without training,” Lohani was quoted in the Cricket Nepal website.

Vesawkar was the only player not retained from the squad which finished fifth at the Asian Cricket Council Twenty20 tournament in the United Arab Emirates after scoring 11 runs in his three innings.

The WCL Division Five will be played from February 20 to 27 and feature Fiji, Bahrain, Jersey, Nepal, Singapore and United States.

Nepal squad: Paras Khadka (capt.), Gyanendra Malla (vice-capt.), Binod Kumar Das, Dipendra Chaudhary, Shakti Prasad Gauchan, Mahaboob Alam, Basant Regmi, Mahesh Kumar Chhetri, Naresh Bahadur Budhaayer, Binod Bhandari, Sanjam Regmi, Amrit Bhattarai, Anil Kumar Mandal, Rahul Kumar Vishwakarma.