Captain Paras Khadka will probably declare the BSAM Ground his favorite for his two innings there has produced him two thumping victories, two half-centuries and two man-of-the-match awards.
Paras Khadka was at his best agains Bahrain. Photo by NepalSportsPhoto.com
His unbeaten 71 against Bahrain brought Nepal an eight-wicket victory and pushed his team towards the qualification to World Cricket League Division 4. It was third victory in as many games for Nepal in the WCL Div 5.
His blazing knock came as Nepal chased down Bahrain’s lowly 114 with 145 balls to spare. Three days ago he scored 69 to register 6-wicket win over Jersey at the same venue.
Against Bahrain, he played 65 balls, hit nine fours and three sixes and went atop the leading run scorer’s table of the tournament.
Earlier, Basant Regmi and Sanjam Regmi led the bowling on the spinners’ track early sharing seven wickets between them.
After openers Dipendra Chaudhary and Mehboob Alam went back early falling to spinners introduced in the second over, Paras came on the field to join Shakti Gauchan.
Paras attacked the bowling and played some glorious cricket shots in his knock. He reached 50 in 50 balls with five boundaries and a six and continued his assault to Bahrain spinners.
Shakti largely played a supporting role rotating strike and enjoying the show. He remained unbeaten on 27 with two fours from 69 balls.
Paras greets after completing his half-century. Photo by NepalSportsPhoto.com
“It was fantastic batting,” coach Roy Dias commented. “Shakti is also batting well in the event.”
Earlier, Nepal won the toss and invited Bahrain to bat first. After losing Imran Sajjad in the first over to Mehboob Alam, Shahzad Ahmed and Abdul Majeed played brilliantly to dominate over pacers.
The pair added 44 in eight overs playing against Mehboob and Binod Das on the pitch that had little support for pace. Basant Regmi was introduced on the tenth over and his introduction put on brakes on runs.
He bowled a maiden followed by a wicket-maiden prompting Paras to use more spinners. Ahmed fell to Basant on 27 while Majeed stayed to the 20th over until Sanjam got his hands on the ball.
Sanjam got Majeed (26) on his first ball. He could have seen a brilliant first over if Mehboob and Shakti held on catches offered at gully and silly point.
Basant, Sanjam, Rahul BK and Shakti made it hard for Bahrain batsmen to score and they reached 100 in 35 overs losing seven wickets.
Wickets fall at regular interval with Basant finishing 4/11 in 8.5 overs and Sanjam adding two more to stay atop the table of the leading wicket takers. He now has nine – two more than Basant who is tied in second position with three others. Rahul grabbed two in his 10 overs.
“It clearly showed that Nepal was better prepared than us, we could not read the wicket,” Bahrain captain Yaser Sadeq said. “We are not used to playing on the turf.”
Nepal is playing Fiji on Wednesday at the TU Ground.
USA beat Jersey, Arora’s 94 keep Singapore in sight
The USA was made to work hard by Jersey for a 66-run victory to also maintain its 100 per cent record in the event.
Jersey must have felt confident of repeating its win over the USA at the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 5 in 2008, when a brilliant spell from Ryan Driver (3-25) helped reduce Steve Massiah’s side to 55-5.
However, a 118-run partnership between Carl Wright (76) and Aditya Thyagarajan (83 not out) brought the US back into the game. It then delivered an electrifying display of hitting with Rashard Marshall hitting five fantastic sixes in a 21-ball innings of 42 not out to post an impressive target of 253-6 off 50 overs.
Dean Morrison once again showed fine form in making 36 and with Samuel de la Haye (also 36) provided a platform for Jersey to chase its target. But no batsman went on to play the big innings required to win the match as Lennox Cush (4-37) claimed four wickets to seal what in the end turned out to be a comfortable victory.
Carl Wright of USA on his way to 76. Photo by ICC.
Man of the match Carl Wright, who had to leave the field early due to a finger injury sustained while keeping wicket, said: “I’m delighted – it was a real team effort to achieve the victory.
“The pitch was difficult to bat on so I aimed to occupy the crease for as long as possible and eventually it paid off for me. The situation called for that type of innings so I just tried my best.
“We still have two games to go and we are just trying to take it one game at a time and hopefully in our next match we can put in a good performance.”
In the other game of the day, Singapore achieved a remarkable victory over Fiji to keep alive its hopes of promotion.
Fiji’s batting once again looked like it had let it down when no batsman made more than Jo Rika’s 32, but an important 10th-wicket stand of 48 runs from Sakaraia Lomani (16) and Viliame Yabaki (18) helped it recover to 194 all out.
Singapore had a disastrous start when it lost three wickets in the space of four balls, in the fifth over, to reduce it to 33-3, before recovering to reach 85-4.
Singapore captain Munish Arora recieves man of the match award from ICC Global Development Manager Matthew Kennedy. Photo by ICC.
Sakaraia Lomani (3-33) then earned his third wicket of the match to dismiss Riaz Hussien to spark another collapse which saw Singapore in all kinds of trouble at 106-7.
Singapore’s 38-year-old skipper Monish Arora then played the innings of the tournament as he hit 94 not out to help his side reach its target with 14 balls to spare.
In Wednesday’s matches, Fiji face Nepal, Bahrain play Jersey and Singapore take on USA.
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Nice Victory over Bahrain.. keep continuing this good performance.. finally some good batting whilst the bowling of Team Nepal has always been perfect!!
Good Luck for the upcoming matches..
well done but the opening is zero n nepalis missing too many ctaches, this sud be avoidein coming matches!
WoW! Captain fantastic has delivered it once again!! I’m dissapointed with the way Dipendra n Meheboob are performing with the bat but still I hope they shine in the game againest USA. We are the glory hunters and for the fans’ sake both of you can’t fail that day. The regmi duo are playing so good that no one can put any question. Shakti should concentrate on his strike rate in this form of cricket, althouth he is so reliable in difficult circumstances to develop partnerships. Binod bro, come on man, the captain tag is not everything. The bigger thing is you are playing for your nation n we fans love you asusual. Meheboob and binod needs to improve in fielding as well. Gyanendra has not got the chance to do much as he is not exposed in crease. Sharad has performed when needed. Rahul needs to work on his odd loose delivery. Paras is awsome not only with his allround abilities but also with great cricketing mind. Mahesh is improving match by match in wicketkeeping duties. The main worry is the pace bowling and lastly again comeon yar dipendra, dais says you r capable of scoring 200 individual runs if u play just 40 overs, don’t let him down man, you are a tiger who can haunt anytime and make sure this is your time. Mehaboob, just repeat your sixers once again, we fans will be on your feet. We love you and we know you can do it as before..
It’s great to see Nepal standing on top both in batting and bowling. Nepal is leading the stat in tournament so far with khadka topping the batting side where Regmi topping the bowling side in the three games so far. Good wishes for them for their promotion towards the ICC WC Div 4.
Thank you
Mukesh
congratulation to Nepal.Good effort. But for the next game against Fiji , i want some change in the line up.Dipendra Chaudhary should b omitted from line up. And Mehboob Alam should b brought down the order n give him one chance n even cant perform then he should also b omitted.Name is nt enough in cricket. if u r out of form then u gotta b out. we have enough promising players in the back up.
and lastly Nepal must try to bat first and score atleast 250 or more. Anything less than that against Fiji wont b welcomed by the nepali fans.My words may seem little rude but if Afghanistan can reach to where it is today with that kind of facilities why cant Nepal be better playing more than 12-13 years n with better facilities then Afghanistan.
We nepali fans deserve better performance from the team.
Good job Paras….You gotta play positive…that is what you are good at…Play your shots and advise the boys to do the same…If we try to keep wickets and hit later, that never work for Nepal. All the players in the team are aggressive except Shakti. He can play his natural game of holding one end and other should go for it..Good luck
O my god!! My captain is this u commenting here? We missed u so much that we everyday always talk about u guys in the coffeeshop.. You, raju khadka and kaniska chaugain are the players we miss the most. You were the most influential captain.
Fantastic display from Paras..congratulation to him and his side.What a player we got,he has taken his (captaincy) responsibility so well..never seen before in Nepales cricket.Now he has to make one more decision drop Dipendra choudhary and bring Anil Mandal in.Give that chap a chance to open,Dipendra is a flop. I also believe that coach Roy Dias is no more passionate about coachin Nepal.WE(Nepalese) all appreciate whatever he has done for Nepalese cricket.His name always will be in Nepalese Cricket History.He has no more to offer ,he crossed his limit but our team has a long way to go and we need a new coach with new ideas ,strategy and technique to take our team to the place where we want to be and should be.Our team must know how important it is to be agressive to move ahead.We need to know how to score runs over 5 runs per over.Believe me this approach will take our team nowhere.
If we have to paly against Afghanstan now they will thrash us ,no doubt.They have reached so far so fast.I know people will say they all raised and palyed in pakistan..Blah Blah Blah..but like in football where scoring and winning matters nomatter however it comes ,its same with cricket as well winning that matters.They are now ODI playing nation(at least for now).My point is we need improvement in every section and lets start from tomorrow.Anil mandal and Mahesh chettri to open(lets try) the innings then 4 middle order as per the situation ,and to follow Alam or basanta regmi.We need to shuffle the squad.TAke a risk we r not doing what we are capable of.Anyway Best of luck for tomorrow with Fiji.
Are we missing decent opening pair??? I would still like to say BATTING should be improved. Paras as a Captain is giving his 100% yet We need to prepare for the next stage and every game is opportunity to show why Nepal pick all you guys in playing 11 just don’t lose opportunities. All my best wishes to opening pair and Good luck for the remaining matches..
WOOOOOOOW, Checking scores on cricinfo.com and stay whole night checking update. I am very delighted that we won 3rd match too now waiting today’s victory too so we will qualify for division 4. As previous i would suggest to break opening partnership and give chance to Dipendra and Gyanendra or Anil. Each match is important for us and we are near to qualify fopr division 4 but if we couldn’t go well on today’s match it would be big disappointed for us. hope coach and committe will consider this. eagerly waiting for match. best of luck boys and waiting for another victory.
hey guys our nepal is doing well………….. but it would be more better if i would have played…..u know ..without me nepal is in………….complete
congrats PARAS for your achievement and guiding us to victory
Once again, a terrific knock by the captain Paras Khadka and destructive spin bowling performances by Basant, Sanjam, Rahul BK and Shakti. The way Paras batted, it appeared as if he was in a hurry to finish off the job and attend to his an important errand. He looked like a man possessed and hell-bent on destroying the opposition bowlers to their doom. Every stroke he played was fabulous and gave tremendous joy to the spectators; who have assembled to cheer on their home team. Despite losing openers cheaply, the way Paras Khadka batted, it only proved his confidence level is on high and a keen desire to win matches single-handed no matter whatever the situation is. It seems he has drawn this inspiration from the Aussies. In his company, Shakti Gauchan also chipped in and played a perfect foil to his Captain. All in all, a wonderful performance by the home side !