At the Institute of Engineering Ground, the rehearsal of the title-clash between Region No 3 Kathmandu and Region No 4 Bhairahawa was abandoned due to rainfall after a farcical event that saw the match stopped for more than 100 minutes.
Bhairahawa won the toss and invited Kathmandu to bat first. Paresh Lohani followed his two half-centuries with 11 and Sharad Veswakar got 5 before Dipendra Chaudhary complained about the lack of the sight screen and Kathmandu decided to stop the match.
Dipendra complained that as the ball got older it looked like the wall on the background. “When we last played here, we told Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN), we can not play without the screen,” captain Paresh Lohani said. The match originally scheduled for Lab Ground was shifted in the last minute.
The match was resumed after 102 minutes when the technical committee and two teams talked the matters and reduced the match to 45-overs affair. Kathmandu lost Dipendra immediately and Gyanendra Malla played an aggressive knock of 31 hitting two fours and two sixes.
Raju Basnet got 28 in 27 balls to take the team to 143/8 in 45 overs. Basant Regmi got out in the first ball of the innings for the second time in a row as he was trapped in front by Abhaya Rana. Manoj Baishya (10) and Amit Shrestha (1) fell to Pramod Basnet, who scored 32 in 122 balls as opener earlier, as Bhairahawa went down to 27/3 in 10 overs.
The match was stopped by rain in the 15th over with Shakti Gauchan (3) and Antim Thapa (13) at the crease.