Nepal wins nail-biting contest

Just Nepali Cricket/October 25

Nepali bowlers defended below par total made by the batsmen and won the match by three runs against strong Railway XI team at practice match played at Roshanara Club Ground, Delhi today.

Bating first, Nepal made mere 104 losing nine wickets in allotted 20 overs. Skipper Paras Khadka prolongs to impress with bat as he scored unbeaten 44 runs to make team's total looks good. Apart from skipper, Pradeep Airee played some fine shots to make run a ball 19 but other batsmen not succeed to contribute significantly to the team's total. Opener Sagar Pun, again fail to handle the new ball as he departed only making six runs. Constant failure of Gyanendra Malla and Sharad Vesawkar bothering the team, as they are preparing for the biggest tournament aiming the qualification for the ICC World Twenty20 Cup 2014. Moreover, tail-enders failed to score runs at the time top and middle order collapse and that made the target looks by far chase able.

Hitesh Kadam and Shamshul Huda of Railway took majority of Nepali wicket fell. Both bowlers shared three wickets each. Karan Thakur, Pankaj Chaudhary and Akshit Pandey grabbed a wicket each.

In reply, Railway team got the very good start as both openers Preetham Singh and S Vigesh scored runs with fine rate. However, Sagar Pun took top three wickets to fell and made Railway rethink about their easy chasing. Railway lost another two wickets until the end of 17^th overs nevertheless they kept game alive with several easy runs scored by the batsmen. Seam bowler Amrit Bhattarai took a wicket at first ball of the 18^th over and pile pressure on opposition but Railway showed their experience, hit some boundaries to eliminate pressure from them, and offered it back to Nepal. Amrit got the ball to bowl the last over and he has 18 runs to defend. However, batsmen took their chances and hit a six and a four that was not sufficient to win the match and they need a four in last ball. Finally, Amrit took the wicket in last ball and gave Nepal 3 runs victory.

For Railway, Preetham Singh top scored with 20 runs and S Vignesh made 15 runs. Hitesh Kadam, Prashat Awasthi and Neel Kanth scored 13, 12 not out and 12 runs respectively. Sagar took three wickets for Nepal conceding just nine run with a maiden in just three overs. Amrit Bhattarai took two whereas Basanta Regmi and Paras shared a wicket each. Rahul VK did not take any wicket.

Nepali team will take the same team Railways XI for fifth friendly match on 26 October, Saturday at Roshanara Club Ground, Delhi.

Brief Summary:

Nepal Vs RailwaysToss won by Railways and elected to field first.First Inning:Batting: Nepal 104/9 (20 overs)
Paras Khadka 44* (47), Pradeep Airee 19 (19), Amrit Bhattarai 06* (04)Bowling: Hitesh kadam 3/18, Shamshul Huda 3/26, Karan thakur 1/22, Pankaj Chaudhary 1/15, Akshit Pandey 1/22
Second Inning:Batting: Railways XI 101/9 (20 overs)
Preetham Singh 20 (19), S Vignesh 15 (20), Hitesh Kadam 12*(06)Bowling: Sagar Pun 3/9, Amrit Bhattarai 2/25 Paras Khadka 1/08, Basanta Regmi 1/26

Result: Nepal won the match by 3 runs.