Cricket: A cricketing mountain for Nepalese

A team of young men from the Himalayas are itching to take on the world's big guns, as CHRIS RATTUE reports from Christchurch.

Fifteen-year-old Kanishka Chaugai shrugs his shoulders when asked what role cricket will play in his future.

"I'll see what life brings," he says, before mentioning that all-important word in sport - money.

The young Nepal opener and his team-mates will struggle to foot it with the big bats of cricket when the under-19 World Cup is played in Christchurch, Dunedin and Auckland over the next three weeks.

After many of the teenagers from landlocked Nepal dip into the ocean for the first time at a Canterbury beach, they will try to stop group opponents Pakistan and England kicking sand in their face at Lincoln Green.

Chaugai may be luckier, financially, than many of his team-mates.

Like his father, a one-time film distributor who is now a director after studying in neighbouring India, Chaugai may play cricket into his 40s, and it could well be with the club his father founded and continues to finance.

But Chaugai, who attends one of his country's best schools, has his sights set on film directing, which means cricket may end up on the boundary.

And it shows why the task of lifting Nepal into the big league of cricket is a daunting one, despite the efforts of the International Cricket Council.

Nepal is one of the world's poorest nations, where most people have an annual income of $450 to $700.

The beauty of its Himalaya region, with the highest mountains in the world and deep gorges, contrasts with the struggles of its people.

Last June they had to cope with the massacre of the royal family. Victims included the much-loved King Birendra Bikram, who relinquished absolute power and restored a multi-party democracy in 1990.

The killings, by Birendra's son, threw Nepal into the world's glare for a brief time.

But it is the six-year campaign of Maoist rebel guerrillas, who operate in the mid-western hilly regions, which is having the most lasting effect.

The fighting has left more than 1600 people dead, including many police and army personnel.

It has discouraged tourism, which is the lifeblood of a country forever linked with New Zealand through Sir Edmund Hillary's climbing of Mt Everest in 1953.

Not only does Nepal face severe soil erosion problems, but the population has expanded four-fold in 70 years, reaching 20 million in a land about half the size of New Zealand's.

Much of the increase is in the tarai regions, the plains and foothills that include the capital, Kathmandu.

And now Nepal faces the regional uncertainty created by India and Pakistan duelling over Kashmir.

It may not be the ideal place from which to launch a team into the higher echelons of world cricket, but people such as Roy Dias, the former Sri Lankan top-order batsman who is an ICC-funded coach of the under-19 side, are reasonably optimistic.

The 49-year-old Dias, a player rated highly by Sir Richard Hadlee, is following in the footsteps of coaches such as Australian Bob Simpson in trying to help Nepal to climb a cricket mountain.

"They have the talent, but it is no good having outside coaches coming and going," said Dias, as he watched Nepal practice against Namibia at Burwood Park, in Christchurch.

"We need to teach people there to coach.

"These players are the hope for the future. Maybe in 10 years they can qualify for the senior World Cup."

But it is hard to overlook the economic hurdles that cricket faces in Nepal, where only the one-day version is played, and usually for only 35 overs rather than the standard 50.

Most homes in the tarai have television - a small black-and-white set costs $50.

Through cable channels ESPN and the Murdoch-owned STAR, which rely on advertising rather than subscriptions for income, world cricket has come to Nepal.

It means Chris Cairns and Adam Gilchrist are household names alongside the likes of the great Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar.

Cricket is virtually a non-starter in the mountainous regions, but in the hillside areas televisions run on tractor batteries and bring the world's best cricketers into view.

Yet to buy a pair of cricket shoes like the ones young Chaugai wears costs $70.

The cheapest brand cricket bat is $130, nearly a third of the average annual income.

For some in the under-19 team, like vice-captain Bardan Chalise, whose father is a top policeman in Kathmandu, it might not be a problem.

But cost will make it hard to build on the growing appeal of the game in Nepal, where hundreds of children can be seen playing cricket in the streets.

Dias says that only one of the two cricket grounds in Kathmandu, the one-pavilion Kirtipur arena, is up to scratch in the country.

Still, Nepal are making some progress.

While their senior side play only against Indian club teams, the under-19s were undefeated in winning the Asia Cup as Nepal qualified for their second World Cup appearance.

Nepal's opponents were hardly cricketing superpowers - they beat Malaysia in front of 3000 people at the Kirtipur ground in the final.

The other Asia Cup contenders were the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the Maldives - many of them former British protectorates.

Winning the Asia Cup is a small step for a country which was introduced to cricket decades ago via the link their neighbours India had with the British.

But it is little wonder that Rajendra Gyawali, a journalist with the Kathmandu Post, who is covering Nepal's World Cup adventure, looks around Christchurch's beautiful Hagley Oval in awe as his young compatriots work under the caring but stern Dias.

"The most important thing I want to get across is that it is safe for tourists to come to Nepal and see our beautiful country," he says.

"I keep meeting people who ask me about the fighting. But that is not in the tourist areas. I am so worried about it - our country needs tourists."

Cricket, after all, is only a game.