Nepal will relish every single moment when they play former world beaters Sri Lanka for the first time in their cricket history, but not before praying the rain to stay away in Florida.

Coastal state Florida has seen abundant rain in Lauderhill for the last few days and forecast suggests the match at Central Broward Regional Park on Tuesday has a high probability of being affected by rain.
After losing Netherlands by six wickets in their tournament opener in Texas just a little less than a week ago, Nepal wouldn’t want the match to be rained off.
But more than Nepal, it will be Sri Lanka desperately praying for a full game after losing their first two matches—against South Africa and Bangladesh.
Nepal had just made their debut in cricket’s global stage when Sri Lanka won the Twenty20 World Cup in 2014. But since then, a lot of things have changed within Sri Lankan cricket.
A year after they won the 2014 World Cup, their stalwarts Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene retired heralding a new era in Sri Lankan cricket. But this new era has yielded nothing for them.
Sri Lanka have been continuously knocked out in global ICC events, while there has been continuous instability in the team formation. Under these circumstances, Twenty20 World Cup is an opportunity to reestablish themselves as cricket’s elites.
However, the two early jolts have already shaken them and as a rising cricketing nation Nepal will be itching to take advantage of Lankan’s vulnerability.
Equally vulnerable opponents
Nepal, however, have their own troubles to deal with. Nepal’s batting looked meek when they surrendered to Canada in a 63-run warm-up match loss.
The format of the game demands the top-order lays the foundation for middle order to fire, but it has not happened so far.
None of the batsmen in the top six positions averages over 30 away from home in their entire T20 international career. To pull off an upset against Sri Lanka, Nepali batsmen need to come up with the best of their entire career.
Reputed for their fielding prowess, Nepal had an under-par performance in the field during their opening encounter that featured three dropped catches and a missed run-out opportunity.
While Netherlands grabbed all their opportunities with safe hands, Nepal not only spilled the catches but wasted potential winning opportunity.

Does one match make a team a bad fielding unit? Not really.
Nepal have always impressed everyone with their performances on the field, but the match against the Netherlands can be quoted as a bad day.
Bat first to win the game?
Out of the 16 Twenty20 Internationals at this venue, the team batting first has won 11 matches, with 170 being the average first-inning score.
Tuesday’s match will be the first of the current World Cup at this venue with more games lined up. The last Twenty20 International played here was between India and the West Indies in August, 2023.
Since the match will be played under the lights, conditions here are expected to favor the batters and medium pacers.

The major challenge for Nepal will be batting under lights. Sri Lanka boast a strong pace bowling attack in Matheesha Pathirana and Nuwan Thushara who have troubled many batsmen with their slinging action.
One change for Nepal?
Nepal might come into this match with one change, with Sundeep Jora coming in and Anil Sah missing out.

Coach Monty Desai is least likely to give rest to any of the regular openers Kushal Bhurtel and Aasif Sheikh in a crunch game. Anil might have to make way for Jora.
PROBABLE PLAYING XI: Kushal Bhurtel, Asif Sheikh (WK), Rohit Kumar Paudel, Sundeep Jora, Kushal Malla, Dipendra Singh Airee, Gulshan Jha, Sompal Kami, Karan KC, Sagar Dhakal, and Abinash Bohara.
