Nepal confidence soars ahead of T20 World Cup Qualifier after stunning win over West Indies

Given all his experience, Stuart Law really should know better. The 56-year-old coach has been involved in professional cricket for 37 years.

That has included an illustrious playing career in Australia and the UK, then a coaching one that has taken in stints with West Indies, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

Now he is in charge of one of the up-and-coming forces of the international game: Nepal.

InterviewStuart Law aims to lose Nepal cricket’s ‘Cardiac Kids’ tag

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In his first two assignments as Nepal coach, his young side have beaten Scotland and the Netherlands – the two top sides in Associate cricket – in a tri-series, then claimed their first win against a Test-playing nation.

They immediately doubled up that maiden triumph in a T20I match against the West Indies by completing their first bilateral series win, too.

They could not have clinched it in much more convincing fashion: they thrashed the two-time T20 world champions by 90 runs on an extraordinary night at Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

Really, Law might have thought to start low, and build up expectations from there. He has set impossibly high standards in his first two series. Where can he possibly go from here? How do you improve on the start he has made?

Nepal do have an immediate target to aim for. In fact, it was the primary focus of their tour to the Middle East: to shoot for a place at the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka next year, via the qualifying tournament in Muscat this month.

The West Indies series was just a very nice aside. Clearly, they will take a huge amount of confidence from winning the series.

Even defeat in the final game, by 10 wickets in the dead rubber on Tuesday night, might work in their favour. It was the sort of reality check which will keep them honest, a reminder that the game never stands still, and their ambitions won’t achieve themselves.

They are lofty aspirations. In the short term, it is all about qualifying for that T20 World Cup. In the long term, it is Test status.

“Let’s take one step at a time and not get too far ahead of ourselves,” Law said.

“I have just requested that when we do our cricket, we do it hard. And when we are not doing our cricket, we are relaxing and having fun, freeing our minds.

“I want a nice and relaxed dressing room. I want to get rid of the tag ‘Cardiac Kids’. I want that gone. That will only come about through being calm.”

Nepal fans have long been used to being taken to the edge by last-ball finishes – which brought about the nickname Cardiac Kids.

It was telling that the atmosphere was relatively subdued when they closed out the win in their second game against the West Indies.

Ostensibly, it was the greatest moment in the country’s cricket history: a series win against one of the giants of the world game. And yet the fact it had been won so dominantly meant a lack of jeopardy, and therefore not so much fun.

Plus there is the fact that West Indies were a new-look side, facing issues of their own, and as such are a diminished version of their former selves.

Even if that is the case, Nepal are grateful for the chance to play them. Securing game time against Test-playing nations is no easy task.

“By playing this Unity Cup, you gave Nepal’s players and fans a priceless stage and memories for a lifetime,” Monty Desai, the former coach, wrote in an emotive post on social media. “That respect for cricket's global family is leadership in action.”

Desai, who once served on the UAE coaching staff, went on to say that “West Indies and Nepal reminded us once again: cricket is bigger than winning and losing, it’s about belonging.”

His affection for the country is telling. The passion Nepal’s fans have for their team gets into the bones. Even though he has moved on from coaching the team, Desai clearly still feels a strong affinity for them.

Their recent success shows what successive good coaching appointments can do. After Desai put the foundations in place, Law is now building the house.

“We are only a very, very young team under my tutelage,” Law said.

“We are getting better. Every time we have gone onto the ground, you have seen an improvement in an area. That gives me a very, very good feeling inside.”