Deusi-Bhailo Brings Tihar Spirit to NPL at Kirtipur

The songs arrived before the cricket did. On a rain-soaked night at the Tribhuvan University International Cricket Ground in Kirtipur, with the toss delayed and the crowd waiting in the dark, the stands began to sing. It was not a chant for a team or a player. It was Deusi-Bhailo, the music of Tihar, rising from a cricket ground that had quietly become part of the festival.

A Song From the Doorways of Tihar

Deusi-Bhailo belongs to Tihar, the festival of lights that is Nepal's second-biggest celebration. Through the festival, groups of singers move from house to house, singing verses that carry blessings, dancing in doorways and courtyards while families welcome them in. The call of "Deusi re" is one of the most familiar sounds of the Nepali year. This season, it found a new address: a cricket stadium full of people who had come for a match and stayed for a song.

The first time it happened, nobody had planned it. Saturday, 31 October 2026, brought the eighth match of the Nepal Premier League, Sudurpaschim Royals against Biratnagar Kings, and it brought rain with it. The showers fell through the day, the toss kept slipping later, and by nightfall there was still no decision on whether the game would be played at all. The supporters who had reached the ground were losing patience, and they said so the only way a Nepali crowd knows how: they lit their mobile phone torches and began to sing.

The verse they chose was Deusi-Bhailo, rewritten for the occasion. In the tune of the festival song, they sang that the game should start quickly, that they were late to watch the game. The complaint became a chorus, the chorus became entertainment, and for a while the delay stopped feeling like a delay. The ground, which had been waiting in the rain, was enjoying itself.

The match did eventually begin, squeezed into five overs a side. The toss was planned for 7:25 PM NST and the start for 7:41 PM NST, but the game only got under way at 9:15 PM NST, long after the evening had turned into night. Biratnagar Kings won it by 35 runs, their first win of the season after two defeats, in a match that will be remembered less for the score than for the singing that kept the crowd warm while it waited.

The singing returns on Saturday

A week later, the songs came back on their own. On Saturday, 7 November 2026, Kathmandu Gurkhas met Lumbini Lions in Match 18, and while the cricket unfolded in the middle, Deusi-Bhailo verses rang out from the stands again. This time there was no rain to complain about and no delay to protest. The singing was simply part of the day, the festival spilling into the match because the match was happening in the middle of the festival.

The cricket gave the crowd plenty to sing about. David Warner struck 66 off 50 balls and Sahil Patel made 38 off 36, the pair putting on 104 runs for the first wicket in 80 balls, only the second century opening stand of the season. Kathmandu reached 160 for 8 in 20 overs, and then Jahandad Khan's four wickets tore through Lumbini's top order. Lumbini, unbeaten in four matches until then, were bowled out for 124 in 19.3 overs, and Kathmandu won by 36 runs for a third straight victory.

It was the kind of evening that explains why the ground has become a gathering place rather than just a venue. The result mattered, the points table moved, with Kathmandu climbing to second on six points behind Lumbini's seven, but the sound of the day was not the bat or the ball. It was a crowd singing a festival song at a cricket match, and meaning it.

More than a playlist

The music at the NPL is not an accident. LOD Club looks after the sound at the ground, choosing songs to match the state of the match and the mood of the crowd, and the range is deliberately wide. Pop and rap sit beside folk and filmy songs, and each of the eight teams has an anthem of its own that plays when its moment comes. Two official songs were prepared for the tournament itself, giving the season a sound that belongs to it alone.

That sound is only one part of the show. Each of the eight franchises has a mascot, and the mascots have become a fixture of the match-day experience in their own right. They dance to the music, wander the stands, and play with the supporters around the ground, each one chosen to reflect the place its team comes from.

Janakpur Bolts have Bouwa, a white elephant whose name is a term of endearment for a son in Maithili. Kathmandu Gurkhas have Dada, a yeti whose name means elder brother, a guardian figure from Himalayan folklore. Chitwan Rhinos have Mr Rhino, a greater one-horned rhinoceros drawn from Chitwan National Park. Sudurpaschim Royals have Baddou, a tiger named in Doteli. Biratnagar Kings have Poorveli Raja, a wild water buffalo standing for the strength of the east. Karnali Yaks have Mr Yak, a Himalayan yak built for hard country and harder weather. Pokhara Avengers have Garuda, the mythical bird of the scriptures. Lumbini Lions have Singh Raja, a lion that carries the team's name into the stands. Above them all sits Jeet, the tournament's own mascot, a snow leopard that stands for victory.

The mascots are easy to smile at, but they say something serious about what this league is trying to be. A franchise tournament borrows its shape from leagues around the world, yet the NPL keeps filling that shape with Nepali things: Nepali music, Nepali festivals, animals and figures from Nepali stories. The crowd is not being asked to choose between cricket and culture. It is being given both at once.

A festival finds a new stage

That is what makes the Deusi-Bhailo nights worth noticing. Tihar has always lived in courtyards and doorways, in the visits between neighbours and the songs sung at thresholds. This year, one of its thresholds turned out to be a cricket ground in Kirtipur, and the neighbours turned out to be thousands of strangers who had come to watch a game and found themselves part of a festival instead.

There is something fitting about the way it happened. The singing did not arrive as a ceremony or a performance. It arrived the way Deusi-Bhailo always arrives, uninvited and unplanned, because people who know the song will sing it wherever they happen to be. On 31 October, they sang because they were waiting. On 7 November, they sang because they were celebrating. Both times, the ground answered.

The league goes on. Pokhara Avengers meet Karnali Yaks in Match 19 on Monday, 9 November 2026 at 12:30 PM NST, and the season runs on to the final on 21 November. The points table will keep moving and the cricket will keep coming, but the sound of this season is already set. Long after the scores fade, the image that will stay is the simplest one: a full ground at Kirtipur, lights on, phones lit, and a festival song rising over a cricket match.