KATHMANDU, Oct 30: Any game would lose its craze without the fans’ support. Fans are the core heart of any sports team. Various fan groups are established to more closely support the teams of interest. The trend of establishing fan clubs has, however, expanded its horizon from being been limited to a small community. 

The Nepali Cricket Supporters Society (NCSS) established 2070 BS is one such non-profit organization that has connected with cricket fans through social media. NCSS has also managed to establish its branches in 17 districts of Nepal. 

Explaining the establishment of NCSS, President Bhanu Sigdel informed, “Nepal has various sports fan clubs but we are the only fan organization in Nepal. Our main objective is to be the voice of all Nepali cricket lovers and make their voice heard for the development and support of Nepali cricket.

We also aim to support cricket-- be it the cricket played at the nooks and corners within the country or a national team playing in an international arena. Along with that, we also aim to help the authorized body to protect the infrastructures for cricket and help maintain the grounds.”

As for now, the members of organization are creating an impact by cleaning cricket grounds before and after tournaments and distributing water in playgrounds. Meanwhile, the organization has also sponsored tournaments held in several schools in the rural areas and have sponsored cricket matches at Jajarkot, Chitwan and Dailekh.

Moreover, the organization also aims to check and balance corruption in cricket and minimize misunderstandings related to Nepali cricket by working as a coordinator and mediator with the stakeholders such as Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN), International Cricket Council (ICC), Asian Cricket Council (ACC) and Sports Ministry, according to Bhanu.  

There are around 2,745 unofficial members in the organization, while nine official members are in the Central Working Committee. The organization was initiated in 2015 through a Facebook page and has 191,917 facebook members. 

“We were inspired by the Bangladesh Cricket Support Association to establish as an organization where all the members work voluntarily out of sheer love for cricket.

The main reason for being inspired to establish the organization is due to the hard work of Nepali cricket players. Because of the cricket players, Nepal is in the 17th position in cricket’s world ranking whereas other sports such football is in 175th place and basketball in 215th position,” shared Bhanu.

NCSS uses social media to the fullest to connect with the fans and shares information related to cricket on social media. Likewise, it has also launched its own Youtube channel where the volunteers get the opportunity to be close with cricket players and the game itself. 

Nevertheless, NCSS also faces challenges while managing volunteers. Bhanu said, “We cannot deny that we don’t face any challenges. One of the major challenges for us is to manage the members’ time. As we are a volunteer-based organization we all have different priorities other than working for NCSS.  However to overcome this, we have asked the members to be committed on certain days and the wok is divided among the volunteers.”

Moreover, they have their own department of finance, research and co-ordination where they manage to get updates of cricket tournaments happening around the country. Though Nepali cricket could not perform as expected in the recent games, supports of the sport have always encouraged the players and hope to see them perform better in the coming days.