It was his first match, but Baitadi’s Binod Bhandari played an innings to cherish lifelong as Nepal rode on performances of unlikely heroes to earn a nail-biting victory against Kuwait at Shk. Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi.
Dipendra Chaudhary took four wickets as Kuwait squandered a good start to get out on 123 in 19.1 overs. Nepali batting collapsed once again before debutant Binod Bhandari hit a six off the last ball to finish at 123/7 in 20 overs. Nepal won 3-2 in bowl out.
Binod went in at 85/6 and scored 25 off just 16 balls with a four and a six as Nepal equaled the total. Off the last over, Nepal needed 13 runs for victory and after taking twos of first two balls; ones of next two balls and a dot on the fifth, only six off the last ball could have equaled the score.
Binod hit it for a six to give Nepal a hope. In the bowl-out, Dipendra, Paras Khadka and Shakti Gauchan hit the bull’s eye while Binod Das and Sanjam Regmi missed. Three Kuwait bowlers missed the stumps.
“I am very happy as I was able to contribute for the team,” said Binod. “I knew I could do something for the team. I got the chance and proved myself.”
Nepal left out veteran Paresh Lohani in favor of Binod. Dipendra partnered Mehboob Alam as the opening pair.
He added 16 off 11 balls with three fours before being out at total score of 30. Sharad Vesawkar just scored a run and made it 32/2.
Mehboob however continued in his fashion to score 32 off 33 balls with two fours and three sixes. Paras Khadka (14 off 16), Gyanendra Malla (10 off 14) and Basant Regmi (12 off 15) all got the start but could not continue and it came down to wire.
Khalid Yameen (3/15) wrecked Nepal’s middle-order.
Earlier, Dipendra, who once held the best bowling figure in one-day for Nepal, was given a ball after it looked like other bowlers, had nothing to do and he did the trick by returning with a figure of 4/11 off 3 overs.
His bowling is the best bowling figure by any Nepali in the Twenty20. Earlier best was bowled by Paras Khadka who took 3/6 against Oman in 2007.
Kuwait had a good start despite losing Khalid Butt in the first over bowled by Mehboob . Yasir Idris (28 off 19, 1×4, 2×6), Hisham Mirza (34 off 20, 1×4, 4×6), Sibtain Raza (27 off 40, 3×4) and Sainal Govind (14 off 13, 1×6) took Kuwait to 96/3 before Dipendra and Basant Regmi (2/10) wrecked their innings.
Paras was happy with the win but was not satisfied with the team’s performance. “I can’t explain what is happening. The batsmen are not getting runs,” he said.
Coach Roy Luke Dias was shocked by the way the team struggled despite having a good start. He praised Dipendra and Binod for saving the team.
Nepal now meets Oman on November 24 at Sharjah Cricket Stadium. Oman had so far defeated Bahrain and Qatar in the event. In 2007, Nepal defeated Oman by a run.
Asked about the team combination against Tuesday’s match, Dias said he would bring in either Paresh Lohani or Naresh Budhair in place of Sharad. “Sharad has not been able give 100 per cent for the team. So I think he will have to stay outside,” said Dias.
In other matches of the day, Saudi Arabia defeated China by 55 runs and UAE defeated Hong Kong by 27 runs while Afghanistan beat Singapore by 8 wickets and Malaysia beat Bahrain by 84 runs. It was second win for all of them.
Photos by Nepal Sports Journalists Forum
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keep it up n improve batting to keep further hope alive.
congrats all keep it up 2 mext gane . well done dipu and bhandari thanks 4 that.
6 off the last ball to equalise a lost match…wow…what an effort… Binod. But, really our pace of scoring runs hasn’t been upto the mark for T20s. Next battle against Oman will be really tough.
Always luck won’t favour guys. The batting must be improved to get victory over oman. All the best guys.
Congratulation to my nepali player specially to bhandari. good luck to all for next game
Well…nothing wrong with ur Side guys…ur opponents were Kuwait…nvr under estimate them….Kuwait is capable to beat ne1 in this Tournament…and watchout for them in the rest of the Tournament…
Pls pls pls improve our batting. It is not up to T20 style of batting.
We all believe that we can do it.
we have lots of hard hitting bats men in the team with a good mixture of allrounders like Mehaboob,paras, Binod, deependra, shakti ……. most can do decent balling
best of luck for up comming match…
be patience…
All The Best…
Cheers..
Great work guys! keep it up….special thanks to bhandari….keeping Nepal in game with a massive Six..
Remember guys!
T20 is very unpredictive form of cricket and we should be scoring around 8 runs per over at this level of cricket. If you are offered or elected to bat first then simply get out there and score 160+ runs on the board…win the remaining games…Nepal’s bowling part is strong so we should end up with the Title…
Cheers!
Well… a narrow escape for Nepal. But not a convincing win.Again the batting side didnt seem up to the mark. The front line batsman are not being able to give a good start. I feel Nepalese players are playing in lot of pressure. They are not being able to adopt the unorthodox way of playing T20. They have been coached by an orthodox batsman and they seem to be sticking in the techniques of batsmanship. Come on guys this is not 50 over or 3 day Test game . Its 20 over game and things can change in a single over. At least one or two guys from the frontline really needs to adopt the condition. Hit the ball hard when u need to and shuffle around when not required. Its not hit continously or block continuosuly. Adopt it. Its because of the Nepalese bowlers that the match was won yesterday but can’t be the same everyday. Today’s game with Oman will be the tough one. Nepal has to win this to stay alive in the game today. My opinion is go with the same squad yesterday and send in Bhandari and Alam as openers. Anyway T20 is the format where you usually dont lose much of a wicket mostly. That is why u r losing Bhandari keeping him in the lower order. Send him early. If it clicks fine if not the other batsman can build up again.So best of luck….. for todays game. Maybe we can drop some good words about batting tomorrow…
First of all, congrats for keeping your cool and extracting victory from the jaws of defeat…Though it was not a convincing victory. Once again, the batting woes have come to the forefront.. Chasing a target of 120+ should have been accomplished by losing not more than 5/6 wickets in 18th or 19th over. Looking at the other teams, especially Afghanistan, who are marauding their opponents with clinical precision and marching with gay abandon, it would be a difficult proposition for our side in the upcoming games. Even in this game, it was bowlers who had done the job. So batters, please wake up before it is too late. For the hard gained victory, keep up the winning momentum and equally believe in yourselves that you can improve in the grey areas as the game progresses.
Best of luck against Oman. Whist writing this comment, I have learnt Nepal has won the toss and decided to field first, I would definitely like to see how our batsmen are going to fare in this match. This is the 3rd game, so it is incumbent on the batsmen to put their act together and complement bowlers’ good done so far.
jamma 112 ko score ni chase garna na sakne k batsman
Nepali cricket team can never rise high coz those who make mistake n realise n try to correct it can be successful but nepal makes mistake realises n again make same mistake, so no hope from the cricket team of nepal. Who should b blamed? The players who have been playing for around ten years with almost the same squad with the same opposition but their quality going down instead of going up, seems they no longer have passion for the game,next the same old administration which had no passion for the game since its foundation, n sad to say it but the coach, Sir thank u for ur huge contribution but wanna say u good bye n u will b remembered for ur contribution.
Hi Ujjwal,
i really appreciate your work for our Nepalese Crick World . Well worked, but one suggestion, please make the live score to be refreshed itself.. you can use DIV which will get reloaded itself in each time duration and using ajax the score will get updated automatically…
Unjustice to the player quoted. How could Binod Bhandari be “Unlikely hero”? He has been selected to play for national team on the basis of his performances not just luck!!!! I guess if the selection process be fair and the selectors do not think of these so called star players than many players from Region 6 would be in national team.
Binod Bhandari is juat a hero…. not a “unlikely hero”, he has done what he had been asked to do….. others didnt !!!