One of the rising stars of Nepalese cricket, Pratish Gharti Chhetri, has called for more opportunities for the supposed minnow nations to tackle Test giants.
Left-arm medium pacer Pratish bowled brilliantly in Nepal’s shock Hong Kong Cricket Sixes victories over England and Australia. Employing his smart variations and maintaining unerring accuracy, he claimed three wickets in each match, including the prize scalp of firecracker Aussie captain Dan Christian.
Nepal lost their quarter-final against Sri Lanka, a loss the 20-year-old acknowledged “was really disappointing … because we came here to win the tournament”.
However, the positives far outweighed the negatives for Pratish in Hong Kong. He was an outlier as a bowler who thrived in a competition designed for batsmen. His six overs in the main Cup tournament yielded seven wickets for 71 runs, with Pratish’s economy rate of 11.83 positively miserly in a format where bowlers are content to go at 18 an over.
“It is really tough to be a bowler here: the wickets are flat, the boundaries are about 35-to-40 metres long and you have only four fielders,” Pratis told the Post.
“This was Nepal’s first time in the Sixes, it was really exciting and provided a great learning curve for us. I was out of my comfort zone and even some of my good balls were going for four.
