Cricket Association of Nepal Board dissolved by Government
Saturday, 8 November 2014 00:00
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The Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) has been dissolved by the Nepal Government on grounds of incompetence. The order for dissolution was passed on Thursday by the Cabinet, which appointed an ad hoc committee with Binaya Raj Pandey as its interim president.
Purushottam Poudel, the Minister of Sports, told ESPNcricinfo that the board, under Tarini Bikram Shah, was not competent enough to take Nepal cricket forward and address the needs of the national team and players. Shah had been appointed on an interim basis after the board headed by Tanka Angbuhang Limbu had been suspended pending investigations into corruption allegations by the Commission for Investigation into Abuse of Authority.
“We were unhappy with the lack of a stable leadership,” Poudel said. “Shah was not available at all times and such indecisiveness was not earning the confidence of the fans and cricket loving public, who were in turn putting pressure on the government to appoint an able leader. Binaya Raj Pandey is one of the founders of Nepal cricket, has previously been the President of CAN and is an able administrator, apart from also being an accomplished cricketer. Therefore, we felt that he is the right person to take Nepal cricket forward. “ Poudel said he’d been in discussions with ICC and ACC leaders who, he said, had told him that they were dissatisfied with the leadership and management of Nepal cricket. “The ICC and ACC are also keen to see Nepal cricket governed more competently and professionally.” Pandey told ESPNcricinfo that he was yet to receive a mandate on his duties but said his plan was to spread cricket throughout the country. “CAN is currently Kathmandu oriented, but the game has grown a lot in the last couple of years and gained popularity in other parts of Nepal as well. CAN needs to be decentralised with power being distributed to regional associations as well. It needs to be run less like an association and more like a board.”
According to him, this move has been long overdue. “There were 31 board members, of whom around 15 had no prior experience in cricket and had never been involved with the sport. In such an atmosphere, there were numerous governance issues with CAN being unable to do justice to the development of cricket in the country.”
Only the members of the board have been ousted, with those employed in the management and administration continuing to hold their posts, including the recently appointed CEO and finance manager. It is believed that the board members will seek a judicial stay on the decision.
“Everything has happened very quickly,” Bhawana Ghimire, the CEO, told ESPNcricinfo. “We are hearing of certain matters from news channels. We will have to wait to till tomorrow to have a clearer picture of things.”
