Ian Harvey is heading back into international cricket, this time as Nepal’s bowling consultant for the 2026 men’s T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka. The former Australia all-rounder will slot in alongside head coach Stuart Law, giving the set-up a distinctly Antipodean feel.
Harvey, 53, knows his way around a white ball. Across 73 ODIs for Australia he claimed 85 wickets, chipped in with 715 runs and, crucially, lifted the 2003 World Cup in South Africa. His T20 record is equally handy: 54 matches, 52 wickets and 1470 runs, including the first century in England’s original Twenty20 Cup back in 2003. Four years later he was named Player of the Tournament in the inaugural Indian Cricket League – a footnote now, but a decent nod to his range of slower deliveries and late-overs nous.
Gloucestershire supporters will remember him from two stints at Bristol, both as a player and later on the coaching staff. That county experience, Harvey says, helped him “understand how to build bowling units from mixed skill sets,” a lesson that should come in handy with Nepal’s emerging attack.
Law, appointed last year, has pushed for additional specialist support ever since Nepal qualified. “We’ve got talent, no doubt,” he said recently. “What the lads need is someone who’s been there, done it at the death, and can explain the dirty work in plain language. Ian fits that bill.”
Nepal’s World Cup group is no gentle introduction. They open against England on 8 February at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, where all their group fixtures are scheduled. For context, Nepal went winless at the 2024 edition but ran South Africa and Bangladesh surprisingly close. Captain Rohit Paudel acknowledged the thin margins: “Little things cost us. Another five runs here, a calmer over there, and results look different.”
Harvey’s remit, then, is straightforward on paper and tricky in practice: tighten those “little things”. Expect plenty of sessions on yorker execution and disguise, areas where he once made his living. Curiously, Nepal’s seam attack is still raw, but analysts inside the camp point out that left-armer Sompal Kami and teenager Gulshan Jha have improved their pace-off variations over the past year. Harvey is likely to double down on that rather than chase outright speed.
There’s also spin. On sub-continental tracks, Dipendra Singh Airee’s off-breaks and Sandeep Lamichhane’s leggies remain central to Nepal’s plans. Harvey won’t take charge of spin directly, yet his experience in field settings and power-play strategy should bleed into that department too.
For now, the appointment carries more promise than fanfare, fitting Nepal’s low-key build-up. Training camps begin next month in Kathmandu before a short tour of the UAE. Results there won’t define anything, but they will show early signs of Harvey’s imprint. If Nepal can turn close defeats into one or two group-stage upsets, this move will look inspired rather than cosmetic.
In a tournament that can be brutal on underdogs, incremental gains matter. Harvey brings a toolkit that helped redefine limited-overs craft two decades ago; whether it transfers to a rising associate nation is the next question. One thing, at least, feels certain: the conversation in the Nepali dressing room just got a touch more Australian.
