f the TU Cricket Ground, and found that he hadnt been paid for four months. This was in March, when the country was reeling from an acute shortage

Every now and then, the regular season presents us with one game that looms larger than the rest.Here it is, in Week 8: No. 6 Texas A&M at No. 1 Alabama, the One Game that dwarfs all others.Both teams are unbeaten. Theyre elbowing each other for the lead in the SEC West. And its the only matchup of top-10 teams this week. There are only two other games featuring two Top 25 teams: No. 23 Ole Miss at No. 25 LSU and No. 17 Arkansas at No. 21 Auburn.There will be plenty at stake in games all across the country, but the playoff perspective begins with ...No. 6 Texas A&M at No. 1 Alabama (3:30 p.m. ET)The loser of this game is in a serious bind but not necessarily eliminated. The 12 members of the selection committee do not have to take four conference champions. Their task is to pick the four best teams, period. Head-to-head results, conference championships and strength of schedule are used as tiebreakers when ranking comparable teams, but its a subjective process that opens the door to the loser of this game still finishing in the top four.Heres a closer look:If Alabama loses: The Tide would then need to win out and hope the Aggies lose two of their five remaining games to win the West. With the exception of Saturdays game, ESPNs Football Power Index favors Texas A&M in every remaining game on its schedule. Alabama would be in a significant hole, but if its a close game, and the Tide finish the season in dominant fashion, they could sneak into the top four without playing in the SEC title game.At 11-1, the defending national champs would have wins over USC, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Tennessee, LSU and Auburn -- and five of those six wins would have come on the road or at a neutral site. The question would be: How many of those opponents are ranked by the committee heading into Dec. 4? If the committee regards the SEC as highly as the AP voters do, it would be a tough résumé to beat -- even for a few Power 5 conference champs.If Texas A&M loses: The Aggies would be in a similar hole, needing to win out AND have Alabama lose twice in its final four games -- an even slimmer possibility, as the Tide have at least a 66 percent chance to win each of their remaining games, according to the FPI. If the Aggies run the table -- with their lone loss a nail-biter on the road against the No. 1 team in the country -- the selection committee would consider an 11-1 SEC West runner-up. Much like Alabama, the Aggies would have a win over a Pac-12 team in UCLA, and they also would have beaten Tennessee. That would look even better if the Vols go on to win the East and play for the title.Heres what else you need to know for Week 8:Undefeated updateWashington: The Huskies have a 98 percent chance to beat Oregon State at home, and they need to -- especially with Washington State still undefeated in league play. If Wazzu heads into the Apple Cup with one loss or undefeated and pulls off the upset, it will win the North.Nebraska: The Huskers shouldnt have any problem against a Purdue team that just fired its coach. They cant get caught looking ahead, though, to back-to-back road games against Wisconsin and Ohio State. That stretch will define their season.Ohio State: The Buckeyes are playing their second straight road game, and Penn State is fresh off a bye week, but the Buckeyes are simply more talented and have the edge on the sideline.Michigan: The Wolverines defense, Jim Harbaugh coming off a bye and home-field advantage? Good luck, Illinois. ESPNs FPI has the Wolverines win probability at 98.6 percent. Its just another lily pad to step on en route to The Game.West Virginia: This will be a tricky home game against TCU, and the Mountaineers need to go undefeated to leave no doubt in the committees mind theyre a top-four team. The good news is theyre playing defense -- unlike the rest of the Big 12.Baylor: The Bears have a week off to prepare for a trip to Texas, the start of a stretch that will finally reveal just how good Baylor is this year. The best thing for the Big 12 would be to have Baylor and WVU still undefeated when those teams meet in Morgantown on Dec. 3.Bubble watchLouisville (5-1): Not only do the Cardinals have to win every game, they cant afford to win ugly, either -- especially at home against an unranked opponent. NC State is coming off an emotional overtime loss at Clemson and now has to travel to Louisville, which has the Heisman front-runner in quarterback Lamar Jackson.Utah (6-1): If the Utes can survive the next two games -- at UCLA on Saturday and home against Washington on Oct. 29 -- they will legitimize their chances of playing for a Pac-12 title. The nonconference strength of schedule and loss at Cal, though, will haunt them in their playoff pursuit, regardless.Wisconsin (4-2): The Badgers have now lost back-to-back games, albeit against two top-five teams, and their chances of winning the West will disappear with a loss at Iowa on Saturday.Oklahoma (4-2): The Sooners cant lose again, period. After nonconference losses to Houston and Ohio State, OU needs to avoid an upset at Texas Tech this weekend and run the table. The Sooners will also need other Power 5 champs to trip up.Colorado (5-2): The Buffs are the FPIs favorite to win the Pac-12 South, with a 60 percent chance, but with losses to Michigan and USC, theyre probably relegated to the role of spoiler in the CFP picture. The more they win, though, the better Michigans résumé looks. Theyve got a tough trip to Stanford this weekend.Group of 5 watchBoise State: The Broncos are the only undefeated team left in the Mountain West and kick off at 10:15 p.m. ET against BYU. With wins over Washington State and Oregon State, they are in the hunt for a New Years Six Bowl as the highest-ranked Group of 5 champion.Western Michigan: These Broncos are the only undefeated team remaining in the MAC and should stay that way after playing Eastern Michigan this weekend. Road wins at Northwestern and Illinois will help separate them in the eyes of the committee.Houston: The Cougars have lost their shot at the top four, but if the New Years Six Bowls were slotted today, based on the current Associated Press Top 25 poll, theyd still be in the Cotton Bowl against Boise State. The Broncos would be there because theyd earn the bid as the highest-ranked Group of 5 champion, and then Houston would go because it would be the highest-ranked available team after the Rose, Sugar and Orange bowls were filled.South Florida: With a win at Syracuse, and their only loss to Florida State, dont discount the Bulls. Theyre leading the AAC East, and if they run the table could earn that New Years Six bid.SuperlativesMost intriguing mascot battle: Lets give a little love to the FCS this week, where Campbell hosts Stetson, because its hard to beat a hat vs. a camel. OK, more precisely, Campbells Gaylord the Camel vs. the John B. Stetson mascot (yes, after the guy who actually made the Stetson hat). Dont worry, his boots are alligator skin -- not camel hair.Upset watch: North Carolina at Virginia. The Tar Heels have been living on the edge in the ACC race, beating Florida State, Pitt and Miami by a combined 10 points. Now they have to travel to Virginia for a second straight road game. If the Cavaliers dont turn the ball over, this could be close.Player in the spotlight: Oklahoma receiver Dede Westbrook. Hell be integral in helping the Sooners keep pace with Texas Tech. Westbrook has 26 catches for 574 yards and eight touchdowns in his past three games. QB Baker Mayfield is completing 89.3 percent of his attempts (25-of-28) when targeting Westbrook during that span.Matchup to watch: Alabamas defensive line vs. Texas A&Ms offensive line. A&M is giving up only one sack per game; Alabama is averaging four sacks. The Aggies are averaging 532.8 yards per game, and the Tide are holding opponents to an average of 274.Under-the-radar game: Memphis at Navy. Memphis is also undefeated in the AAC West, and Houston is on the edge of its seat waiting for the Midshipmen to trip up. Navy has to lose twice for Houston to win the division, and this could be a tricky one for the Middies.Must-win game: Wisconsin at Iowa. As the only undefeated team left in the West, Nebraska is the front-runner to win the division, but the winner of this game still has a shot. The Badgers enter the game with a 29 percent chance to win the division, and the Hawkeyes are at 14 percent, according to the FPI.Dont forget about: Utah at UCLA. Dont snooze on the Utes. Theyre the only one-loss team remaining in the Pac-12 South, and theyre heading to the Rose Bowl for what should be a defensive clinic. Clearance College Basketball Jerseys .ca! Hi Kerry, Its another day and here we are looking at another dubious hit to the head. In this case Blue Jackets forward Brandon Dubinsky elbowed Saku Koivu in the head about a second after he dished off the puck to a teammate, knocking him unconscious. Cheap College Jerseys . Defencemen Drew Doughty, Shea Weber and forward Ryan Getzlaf also scored for the Canadians, who started their gold-medal defence 2-0. Goalie Roberto Luongo, getting the call in place of Game 1 starter Carey Price, was solid when needed in making 23 saves for the shutout. http://www.cheapcollegejerseys.net/ . The visitors took a deserved lead in the 16th minute with midfielder Yohan Cabaye curling the ball beyond Adrian from inside the penalty area. Discount NCAA Jerseys . While hell be dialed in to that tournament on a course he loves, you can forgive him if his eyes glance down the calendar just a bit, towards April. Wholesale NCAA Jerseys . Brett Kulak and Jackson Houck of the Vancouver Giants were each charged with assault causing bodily harm on Aug. 18, according to the B.C. court services. In the euphoria of Nepals widely broadcasted wins against Hong Kong and Afghanistan in the 2014 World T20 in Bangladesh, cricket captured the nations imagination. Here was a sport that the country could compete in at the elite level, a team that could do the proud nation some good. Not long after, Nepal was granted T20 international status, raising hopes of seeing them play more regularly on the international stage.Suddenly everyone was a cricket fan. Games of cricket started popping up in backyards and open spaces. The sport became a regular topic of conversation in teashops and bars. The popularity of cricket fuelled hope that a proper domestic league would finally be set up. Looking into the future, cricket fans saw Nepal playing ODIs, and eventually Test cricket, on a regular basis.A few months after Nepals remarkable performance in Bangladesh, and under pressure from the ICC to professionalise its management, the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) hired 31-year-old Bhawana Ghimire as its first CEO. When news of her appointment filtered out, it was greeted with both fanfare and scepticism. Was she the best choice? Was she a political pawn? People were excited to see a new face, a young face, at a time when the CAN board was overseen by the 83-year-old Tarini Bikram Shah. To top it off, a woman had been appointed to professionalise a sporting institution that had, for all of Shahs eight decades, been rooted in patriarchy and aristocracy. Was it even possible?Despite CANs entrenched problems and notoriously storied politics, Ghimire had no hesitation in taking on the job. I anticipated challenges, she said to me in February. But cricket has so much potential in Nepal and I felt that I could contribute to make it the biggest sport in Nepal.Ghimire instantly became a celebrity. Her mandate included maintaining communications with the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), ICC, and Nepals governing bodies; running the CAN office; and reaching out to sponsors and other stakeholders for the promotion of cricket. Leveraging her new-found fame, Ghimire consistently pushed her agenda of professionalising cricket. She worked closely with Pubudu Dassanayake, the former Sri Lanka wicketkeeper-turned-Nepal coach, to draft a 70-page five-year plan.Six months into the job she presented the plan to the board. It was never approved. I dont know if anyone even read it, she says with sadness.Taking on responsibility has been a cornerstone of Ghimires upbringing. The oldest of three siblings, she raised her brother and sister in Kathmandu after they moved from their parental village in Arghakhanchi. She was in sixth grade at the time.It was the first time I had seen or ridden a bus. It was all new to me, she says, before going silent and reflective. I guess I left my childhood in the village. My mother stayed back in the village and when my father was at work, I had to be the responsible one. My father enrolled me in Padma Kanya Higher Secondary School, and I remember, on the third day I went to school all by myself. It sounds trivial now, but that day, after I got home, I felt like I had become an independent woman.Ghimire isnt an imposing figure but she carries herself with measured confidence. She is smartly dressed in a suit, and her eyes hold a steady resolve, a trait she has relied on when dealing with the mighty men of CAN. Unlike most Nepali girls, who are raised to be obedient wives, Ghimire grew up in a household that encouraged her to be freethinking and independent. Its always been like that with my family, she shrugs. I was given the freedom to choose what I studied and what I did. I never had to think about things in a gendered sense until I got this job.Growing up in Kathmandu, Ghimire dreamt of working in a bank. For many young Nepalis growing up in the 1990s, banks were an oasis of professionalism in an economy that was mostly informal. Pursuing her dream, she got a Bachelors in business administration in Kathmandu and then an MBA in banking and finance from the University of Wales in Bangor. After working in a bank in Nepal for a few months, she moved to Bahrain to join an asset management company.By then traditional banking had lost its charm on me and I wanted to do something new, she explains. For the next three and a half years, she had the opportunity to work on a number of sports events and the acquisition of some sporting companies. I did a lot of research on sports clubs. I studied football clubs and some IPL clubs and came to know how sports clubs operated.At a time when many Nepalis were actively seeking to leave the country in search of greener pastures, Ghimire chose to return to Kathmandu in 2010. Well, I always knew I would come back and I always intended on coming back, she says laughing. I had a dream of coming back to Nepal and establishing my own company.Four years on, she got the call from CAN.When I first met Ghimire, in February, Nepal were playing in the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh while the two CAN boards, both contesting legitimacy, were mired in a court battle. As we talked, we saw the Nepal top order crumble against Pakistan. We were sitting in a corporate-looking office and the game was being shown on a large flat-screen TV in the lobby. This is my husbands office, she revealed in the lull between overs. We cant work out of the CAN office since there is nothing there - no computers, no Wi-Fi.Nepal tumbled to 29 for 4 in the tenth over, chasing 259. Our boys are inexperienced, Ghimire stated, more to console herself. Theyve hardly gotten any training or serious coaching.I suggested that the U-19 team must be extremely talented to have beaten New Zealand and Ireland on their way to the quarter-finals. Raw talent, but from here on if they dont get the kind of support and training that the New Zealand and Ireland players will get, they wont be able to keep up. She felt responsible for making sure that they kept up.The team also had to put up with a dysfunctional CAN. This whole tour is running on credit, she said, exasperated. The players and coaches are having to spend their own money to represent their country.The energy and love for the game among players and fans has encouraged the ACC and ICC to continue to support Nepal. On a number of occasions, international boards have gone to great lengths to overlook CANs politics and ensure Nepals teams could participate in tournaments. Yet Nepal crickets current predicament is not unexpected. The last sport to capture the national psyche was football in the late 1980s and 1990s. Most of its aspirations died within a political quagmire. When the president of the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) was suspended over charges of corruption in last years FIFA scandal, no one raised an eyebrow.To understand the latest twist in the CAN story one must go back to December last year, when the National Sports Council (NSC), citing procedural inconsistencies, refused to recognise the newly elected CAN board. The NSC appointed its own 15-member board under a different leadership - which led to a court case that is currently held up in the Supreme Court. With the fate of CAN stuck in the courts for months, the ICC board stepped in on April 26 and suspended CANs membership, until CAN becomes free of government interference and is properly structured to begin exploiting the tremendous cricket talent and opportunities that exist in Nepal. However, the ICC board stated that it would allow the national team to continue featuring in ICC events, and retained Ghimire to oversee cricket operations.Ghimire helped the ICC coordinate Nepals visit to the Netherlands for two games in August this year, as part of its World Cricket League (WCL) Championship. Nepal lost the first match by seven wickets but bounced back to win the second by 19 runs.dddddddddddd In preparation for these matches, the ICC helped organise a tour of England in July, where Nepal beat the Marylebone Cricket Club in front of over 5000 adoring fans at Lords.In her quest to professionalise CAN, Ghimire has required incredible patience. Four to six presidents - depending on whom you consider legitimate - passed through CAN during her tenure. She worked under a board beset by court cases, infighting, and periodic bank freezes, combined with increased media scrutiny. While there have been marked improvements in the last year and a half, the instability of the board has meant progress has been tentative. When annual contracts for the players were announced in January last year, it was greeted with unanimous approval as a move towards professionalising the sport. With CAN operationally defunct, these contracts are yet to be renewed.The two Nepal-Namibia games in April, part of the WCL Championship, were shrouded in uncertainty for many months. The ICC confirmed the venue a month before the games, only after deciding to take over all administrative responsibilities. Nepal won both matches and record numbers turned out to watch, but the spectre of a deadweight cricket board hung over the games.About a month before the matches were to be played, I sat on a concrete pipe that serves as a bench in Kathmandu Cricket Training Center (KCTC) and waited for Gyanendra Malla, Nepals vice-captain. KCTC occupies a small space two kilometres north of Nepals premier cricket stadium - the Tribhuvan University (TU) Cricket Ground. Five teenage boys were singing old Hindi film love songs, chatting and laughing as they took turns bowling and batting in the nets.Malla was easy-going and personable. His words came easy and precise. Watching him on TV doesnt give you the sense of how imposingly built he is and how his persona can fill the room. I asked him how the turmoil in CAN was affecting the team. It affects Nepali cricket for sure, makes everything difficult, but it doesnt really affect our morale, he explained. When we started, playing for our country was enough. That reason for playing has not changed.When I brought up the issue of contracts, he shrugged. They havent renewed it, but its not like we were not playing when we didnt have contracts. So what was the biggest fallout from the CAN drama, I asked. We dont have a permanent coach and we dont have a cricket calendar, Malla said. We cant plan anything in advance. Our competitors have their cricket calendar set for the next two, three, five years. We dont know what we will be doing in two months. It makes it incredibly hard for us to prepare for our upcoming matches.The national teams recent on-field success has meant access to larger pots of international funds, larger allocations within the national budget, and larger sponsorship deals. This has also meant that power brokers and politicians have come circling, like scavengers around carrion. Like with every other sport and industry in the country, the dreams of Nepali cricket have long been held hostage by the power of a few.I asked Malla what he thought about the way the sport was governed. What we really need is a change in mentality, he said. We need people to come into cricket thinking of what they can give to the sport, not what they can take from it.The players arent alone in bearing the brunt of the administrative mess. Later that day I met Madhu Tamang, the head groundsman of the TU Cricket Ground, and found that he hadnt been paid for four months. This was in March, when the country was reeling from an acute shortage of fuel and cooking gas, and facing political turmoil. In the Madhes, the flat lowlands in the south, protesters unhappy with the countrys new constitution had blocked all roads to Kathmandu. The government ignored their demands and blamed India for the fuel crisis. This sparked a strong wave of unitary nationalism, which the government exploited to violently suppress the protesters. Over 50 people lost their lives.Tamang was confident that his 13-member team would eventually get paid. He had witnessed a number of upheavals in CAN and not getting paid during such transitions had become routine. I asked how he managed to maintain the ground when CAN was defunct and the nation was reeling under a fuel crisis. I was getting some fuel from the office, he said, but recently Ive been buying it off the black market. For someone who had not drawn a salary for four months, to go out and purchase 15 litres of petrol - at an exorbitant rate of about US$5 a litre - to water a pitch is as heroic as it is foolhardy. It is also very Nepali.When I asked Ghimire what would allow the players, groundsmen and their support teams to be able to do their jobs without being held hostage by the politics of the board, she had a clear road map in mind. We need to reform the way cricket is managed in Nepal. We need a board that defines guidelines for management, sets financial controls, and then allows management to run day-to-day operations. We have a three-year agreement with Nepal Telecom for a yearly NPR 15.5 million (or about $155,000) sponsorship deal to support a T20 league and a domestic league [the biggest deal in Nepal sports], but without a governing body, we havent been able to act!Ghimire also sold exclusive television rights for international cricket matches to Nepal TV for NPR 1.8 million per year (about $18,000) but the lack of cricket has been a major turn-off for potential sponsors. Its very easy for sponsors to shift from cricket to football in Nepal, Ghimire said. If we cant deliver games, they will start shifting. The turmoil in CAN has meant that Nepal cricket has been unable to secure grants of upwards of a million dollars from the ICC. And even that, according to Ghimire, would not be sufficient. We need to raise at least another million dollars in sponsorship on top of the ICC funding, she said. Thats how much we would need to really develop our domestic league and improve the standard of Nepali cricket.Does she think that is possible? Absolutely! We have a great team and raw talent. We can host a domestic league, T20 tournaments, one-day tournaments, U-21, U-19, womens and college tournaments. This is not even considering the scope of international matches and tournaments in Nepal. Each of these have to be developed. Each can have their own sponsors. But we need to build a system that can manage and run it.Early in July, with CANs court case set to continue, Ghimire officially tendered her resignation to the NSC. She said that she would continue to work under the ICC to oversee operations for Nepals national teams. In an interview to onlinekhabar.com, she spoke about her inability to fulfil her role as CEO. With two CAN boards, some say I am the CEO, others deny it. This means that even as CEO, I cant do anything. I can neither pay the players nor the employees. I can neither secure sponsorship nor run domestic tournaments.Nepal is fortunate that the ICC and ACC retain great hope for cricket in the country. There is a crop of players, coaching and support staff who are willing to give their sweat and time for pride and honour alone. But fortune and volunteer efforts wont stand the test of time. If cricket is to be a consistent feature of the countrys sports leagues and if they are to field a team that challenges for international honours, the people who claim to own the keys to Nepal crickets governing body must match the spirit of the players who have done this nation proud. ' ' '