National T20 Cricket Tournament: Day one round up

Sept 26
At first day of the Pepsi Standard Chartered Senior T-20 National Cricket tournament, Kathmandu,
Nepalgunj, Birgunj and APF register the victory in their respective matches.Region No 3 Kathmandu defeated Region No. 4 Bhairahawa by 84 runs in the first match and Region No. 2 Biratnagar beat Region No 1 Birgunj by nine wickets in the second match played at TU Cricket Ground Kirtipur today.
Bibhutsu Thapa scored 44 not out and Arjun Adhikari's 33 not out paved the way for Kathmandu to set a huge target against Bhairahawa. In a bid to restrict opponent to mere 78 runs, Anil Karki took four wickets while Niraj Basnet took three wickets. Niraj Basnet declared Man of the Match.

In the second match,Biratnagar manage to score only 85 runs in allotted 20 over. Manjeet Shrestha scored
highest 28 runs for Biratnagar. None other batsmen could reach the double figure for Biratnagar. Kumar
Thapa of Birgunj, who declared the Man of the Match, took three wickets, while Aarif Sheikh took two
wickets. Ramnaresh Giri, Binod Das and Jitendra Mukhiya of Birgunj pocketed one wicket each for
Birgunj. In reply, Amit Shrestha scored highest 43 runs while Suraj Patel and Hasim Ansari added 18 and
19 runs respectively to chase down the target under 15 over.
Likewise, Region No 5. Nepalgunj beat Region No.7 Janakpur by 25 runs in the first match and Armed
Police Force (APF) thrashed Region No.8 Pokhara by a massive 92 runs in the 2nd match played at
Engineering Ground, Pulchowk.Mahesh Chhetri of Nepalgunj declared the Man of the Match for his brilliant half century. Raj Mohammad and Hari Shankar Sah took a couple of wickets each for Janakpur. In response, Chandan Jha, Sunil Sah and Hari Shankar Sah of Janakpur scored 25, 21 and 20 runs respectively but the total was 25 runs too less to win the game. In an attempt to defend the target, Aakash Bista and Nijamuddin Halwahi made three wickets haul each against Janakpur.
In another match, national cricketer Gyanedra Malla, who represents APF, scored 90 runs in just 44 balls.
Gyanendra got the Man of the Match award for his contribution from bat. Paras Khadka scored 35 not out in mere 13 balls for APF. For Pokhara, Anil Gurung took highest two wickets while Sushil Kandel and
Dipesh Shrestha pocketed one wicket each.In response, Dipesh Khatri scored highest 29 not out for Pokhara. Santosh Gurung and Rijan Prajoo added 15 and 11 runs respectively in the table but that was not enough to meet the target of 193 runs set by the APF team. At second inning, Bhuwan Karki and Rom Shrestha took two wickets each while Amrit Bhattarai and Shakti Gauchan grabbed one wicket each for APF to shield the total.
Tomorrow, Region No.3 (Kathmandu) will take on Region No. 9 and Region No. 7 (Janakpur) will be
competing with Region No. 8(Pokhara ) at TU Ground, Kirtipur. Likewise Region No. 2 and APF will play
the first game and Region No. 1 (Biratnagar) will take on Region No. 5 (Nepalgunj) in the second match at
Engineering Ground, Pulchowk.