The anger of the Nepali cricket fans at the moment is fully warranted. It's really hard to watch our men's senior team consistently shatter boundaries, sell-out stadiums and rewrite history while we've been stuck in the same rut of inaction that we've been in for almost 10 years with our women's team. A few close matches with other teams such as UAE have come in the past few years, but a string of disappointing displays against Bhutan and early retirements to other teams such as China have left us no room for complacency and major structural issues. It's easy to see why fans are demanding the sacking of 90 per cent of the team, but uncomfortable and glaring truth is the reality is that there's no one on the bench to replace 90 per cent of the team. There will be no hunt for new talent in complete vacuum. Some tournaments, such as the Lalitpur Mayor Women's Cup, the Prime Minister Cup, have been established on paper but they are dead in the water and are merely short term events held at the right time of the year. The problem is that the whole thing is missing or really, it's very unflourishing; it has no long-standing domestic tournament pyramid that tests players in the game's purest formats.
The Cricket Association of Nepal should completely rethink its approach towards women's cricket and move away from the box checking approach to create a real professional path for women's cricket to overcome this cycle in Nepal. It begins with scouting right at the grassroots level, working in schools throughout all seven provinces to raise the awareness of young girls in the sport, and establishing a permanent hub for scouting in each province – so talent is not lost. Moreover, the cricket schedule should be expanded, so that players can play regularly instead of for a couple of weeks per year. Rather than rushing to a grand franchise scheme that this existing ecosystem can't support, I think the best way to go would be to set up a strict, multi-month, disciplined One-Day format plan. A domestic league, with the right parameters, to be introduced in each province is exactly what these players are in need of to learn to be match aware, how to create an innings and build the mental stamina for international cricket. Last but not least, this is about having regular bilateral tours between regional teams from India, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh and domestic teams to give these players access to high performance infrastructure, sports science, and match play in the region at regular intervals to prepare them for the gap between domestic and international intensity. It is not players like our women cricketers who are not doing a good job of giving it a go; it is a tournament structure that is failing to give them tactical development first priority. There is nothing of world quality without world quality as a structural basis and it is time for CAN to finally provide our ladies with a solid, long form foundation.