Stuart Law has big plans for Nepal cricket’s ‘Cardiac Kids’ – starting with losing that tag

Australian coach will oversee his new side’s bid to beat one of his former ones, West Indies, when they play the two-time T20 world champions in Sharjah

Interview with Nepal cricket coach Stuart Law. Antonie Robertson/The National

Stuart Law must have wondered what he had got himself in to. After all, for all the advances they have made in their captivating rise in world cricket, Nepal remain outside the game’s mainstream, enviously looking in.

Law played more than50 times for Australia, and had 12 years as an overseas pro in UK county cricket, followed by coaching gigs with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and West Indies. It doesn’t get much more mainstream than that.

Then, while coaching the United States, he became aware of Nepal’s fan base when 7,500 turned up to watch a game in Dallas. They are difficult to miss: the following Nepal’s national team have is the envy of many, including within the Test elite.

For all the riot of colour beyond the ropes, it was the talent of the Nepal players which intrigued Law. When the job of coaching them later became available, he jumped at it.

His first assignment was a stark introduction to the beauty of Nepal cricket. They beat Scotland and the Netherlands, the two flagbearers for Associate cricket, in a limited-overs series in Dundee and Glasgow.

In the course of it, they won one game with a ball to spare, lost one off the last ball, won three others in the final over, and lost another having tied it three times (Netherlands won a T20I after a third Super Over).

All standard sort of fare for Nepal. Their nickname has been well earned through years of putting their enviable supporter base through the emotional ringer.

“The Cardiac Kids: my God, yeah,” Law said, speaking in the lobby of the team hotel in Dubai ahead of their T20I series against the West Indies in Sharjah.

“After that tour, I said, ‘Boys, we need to get rid of this tag. It’s no good.’ And they just laugh. I say, ‘Boys, it’s not funny.’

“I would rather win easily than put yourself through the potential cardiac arrest. But it’s just what they do. It comes from their passion, it comes from their excitement.”

Which is something he does not want to take away. It is one of their superpowers. But a little perspective could help, too.

“When we're doing well, you can hear them get up,” he said of watching on from the dugout.

“We've got to stay even, so chill out boys, just relax. And then if we lose a couple of wickets, everyone’s right down here, and there is no noise.

“Then remember, stay even, don’t go too high, don’t go too low, always stay in the middle. When we do that, we make very good decisions, and if we play a brilliant brand of cricket, it’s great to watch.”

The brand of cricket he is trying to embed with his new team does not have an obvious template. Certainly, it will look very different to that played by sides like the West Indies, who they face in T20Is on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.

Law coached the West Indies before. He points out the profiles of their players and those of Nepal are completely different, so they need to play differently, too.

“If you look at players from the subcontinent, take India, Pakistan and Afghanistan out of it,” he said. “They seem to be bigger and stronger, and have been in programmes for longer.

“Everyone’s talking about the power game. ‘We’ve got to hit sixes, we’ve got to hit sixes every over.’ Some teams can’t do that.

“I worked with Bangladesh. They can’t do it. So we had to find a different way to play. My point is, I’m not saying we can’t hit sixes, but we’ve got to earn the right to hit a six. We’ve got to wear the opposition down.

“We’ve got to play a different game of cricket rather than just go block, block and then try to hit six, because we can’t do that.

“Guys like Chris Gayle or Andre Russell, Mitch Marsh, Liam Livingstone, they can do it. We can't. We weigh 58 kgs at best. We’re not 110kg, 6ft 8in beasts. So we've got to find a different way to play.”

He has worked on a method with Rohit Paudel, Nepal’s captain, and is confident they have the players to make it work.

“I was lucky enough to be involved with Sri Lanka in my first coaching gig for two years, and worked with a guy called Mahela Jayawardene,” Law said.

“He’s 5ft 6in, he’s not a gym junkie, not a muscle-bound giant, but he hit the ball just as far as anyone. He did it through beautiful technique and timing. He could play any shot.

“You watch him play T20 cricket, his strike rate was 150-plus. You have a look at him playing Test cricket, he could bat for two and a half days. Your best players are your best players, and they'll find a way. They don't need to try to hit every ball for six.”

Stuart Law during his time as Sri Lanka coach in 2011. Reuters

Law is confident ahead of West Indies, but points out the result is not as important as what follows at the T20 World Cup Qualifier in Oman, when they will be bidding for one of three places at next year’s main event.

That is the immediate future, but he has big plans for the longer term, too – personally as well as for Nepal.

“It’s an exciting time,” he said of the latter. “They’re an emerging nation, and they’ve got the ambition to become a Test playing nation.

“A lot of things have got to happen before that becomes reality, but the passion is there and the desire is there to get it done, and not just from the players, but also the administration.”

His own long term goals are similarly lofty. He has coached four of the 10 Test nations, as well as in England, where he lives with his wife and son when he is not on duty with Nepal.

It is a packed CV, but with one omission that he hopes to one day rectify. “I’d love to go back and coach Australia, go back full-time,” Law, 56, said of his ultimate coaching ambition.

“Whether it be the national team men’s team, whether it be in the women’s programme, or whether it be the Under 19s again.

“I’d rather get into doing an assistant coach role, but if the head coach role became available, you’d have to have a look at it.”

But for now, his full focus in with Nepal, and helping realise their own aspirations. “Cricket’s given me a lot, and now it's my turn to give something a little bit back to the game,” he said.