In the mid of 2003, I met
some cricketers in TAZ Hotel, Bagbazar, I can still remember some name: Shakti Gauchan,
Manjeet Shrestha and Yashwont Subedi. I was there to meet my friend from UK and all of sudden met some cricketers. I was a reporter, working for Times FM, that's why I acknowledged them. But I never thought that it was my start for a new journey of cricket. Knowing them personally, dragged me to keen on their performance. At that time I knew nothing about cricket. Absolutely not.. But that introduction was well enough
for me to draw attention on the beautiful game . I started to follow cricket. And the journey started….
If you want to get
involved in cricket first you have to enter men’s ground because it’s a male
dominant game.When I had started cricket
reporting as a media person in 2003, from the first day of my job i came to know that there’s no women face in cricket ground. That time I was even
not much familiar with cricket game and its rules and languages.
Albeit, I decided to
enter…but how? I thought scoring will be good idea. I requested to official scorer
of Cricket Association of Nepal (MR. Riddhi Bhakta Panta). He helped me lot. Learning days was not easy to me but I never gave up. I avoided poor facilities in the ground. There was
no toilet and still many of the cricket grounds are not women friendly not even for women
cricketer, scorer and media person. I used to drink very few water to avoid the problem. Besides that poor facilities, I got support
from cricketers, Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN), and Umpires which inspired me to keep going. Further more, the support of ground staff was warm that made me feel easy to engage in scoring. I got chance to participate in Umpiring and
scoring training in 2004. I became official scorer in 2004, daily newspaper
covered my interview, where I mentioned that women can also play cricket and
involved in technical parts, scoring and umpiring.
After three years in my
scoring life, finally the women cricket started in Nepal. Then I didn't need to stay
inside the ground alone. When first women cricket held in Kathmandu in 2006, I was
senior scorer among young women scorers. As I was experienced one, happily played a
role of guardian of them.
Being a first women official scorer of CAN, I got a chance to handle National
women cricket team for the first Asian Cricket Council (ACC) women cricket which was held in Malaysia in 2007 . I was assistant manager but
I was the only one female official in the team. Going through that tournament I
found out some problem which is really challenging. First thing was continuation of women cricket. We were runner up in ACC women cricket that
made the country to see a chance of women cricket. I started to get involved in
women cricket as well as scoring. The first thing I did personally was getting contact with women cricketer and write about their potentiality and challenges.
No official institution for women cricket that means more challenge to save
women cricketer. That resulted me to join Regional cricket committee as well as
co-ordinate with local coach to promote women cricket.
My village (Dakshinkali)
is 18 kilometers far from the capital, and we have special women cricket
training center, where 16 school girls trained in first batch. Now there are
good player of u-19 level. Some are engaged with National cricket academy
and some are doing training in local level. But all are member of Kathmandu
regional women cricket team.
Most of the women
cricketers are from the village area and their parents want a woman to lead their
daughter on and off the field. So I am doing my job. Nowadays I am less focusing on scoring (now lots of women scorer are in the field) and more on women cricket development. Because I found that
developing country like Nepal, cricket can be a source of women empowerment and
social change. Now we have positive
environment for women cricket. But crisis in cricket administration is also
hampering the development of women cricket.
We need to settle women player’s
education problem, manage to train, facilities as well as focus to school girls’
cricket. My plan is to work on these areas in upcoming days. Even though I am
a lawyer, my
special focus on women cricket will remain same. This year my name was nominated for the ICC Global Award (Women cricket: Behind the scenes) from the Asian region I contribute this achievement to the Nepali Cricketers for up lifting the game without good facilities. The game was there, players was there and that was the reason I was there, I am there, of course I will be there forever...JAY NEPALI CRICKET......
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