Nepal bowled out Tanzania for 73 in 39.3 overs and the openers – Anil Mandal (47 not out) and Mahesh Chhetri (24 not out) raced the team to target in 12.3 overs.

During a league match, Tanzania defended 117 to beat Nepal by nine runs – a surprise result that put Nepal out of the finals and promotion to Division 3.

Tanzania elected to bat first. The openers added 19 before Binod Das and Amrit Bhattarai took a wicket each in space of four balls to make it 19/2. Bhattarai added one more wicket as Abdallah edged to wicketkeeper Mahesh Chhetri.

It was then the slow bowling that made hard for Tanzania. Shakti Gauchan led the bowling with 3/10 in his 9 overs while Basant Regmi got 2/15 and Rahul Biswokarma claimed the topscorer Kikasi who made 32 off 72 balls. The only other batsman to score double-digit was opener Kiongozi (12).

Mehboob Alam also got a wicket castling stumps of Nassoro.

Photo by International Cricket Council

In a crucial match important for relegation, Nepal bowled out Cayman Islands for 69 in 39.5 overs — with left-arm spinner Basant Regmi taking four wickets. Nepal”s batting was not on par with bowling but the victory was completed in 17.2 overs at the loss of three wickets.

Mahesh Chhetri started aggressively but he edged to second slip trying to cut wide to M Bryan. He scored 19 off 22 balls. An over later, Anil Mandal (2) departed edging to rising delivery of C Wright.

At 27/2, Paras Khadka and Shakti Gauchan added 24 runs before the skipper was clean bowled trying to lift a shot. He made 13 off 20. Shakti (13 not out) and Gyanendra Malla (9 not out) then took Nepal home without further damage.

Earlier, Cayman Islands elected to bat first. They started slow but well adding 17 for opening stand. A clever work by Mahesh behind the wicket undid J Linton, who forgot to step back after leaving Amrit Bhattarai”s delivery to keeper.

Amrit then claimed R Sealy (11) who top-edged to Anil while trying to pull. Mehboob Alam, who bowled third for Manjeet Shrestha shared new ball with Amrit, claimed two quick wickets as Cayman went down to 25/5 in the 12th over.

R Bovell tried to held back the innings with fighting 31 not out but he ran out of partners as Basant came into action drying up runs and picking regular wickets. Rahul Biswokarma also claimed a wicket.

Man of the Match Basant Regmi commented, “I played my normal game today to claim my four wickets and it’s always nice to have your achievements recognised but ultimately I and the team are disappointed that we have not won promotion to Division 3.

“We still have the belief as a side that we could have been promoted but we just did not perform to the standard of cricket we know we are capable of playing. It’s now a case of returning to Nepal to look at what went wrong and to correct it for the future”.

On Saturday, Nepal plays Tanzania for third place. Tanzania defeated Nepal in the league match defending 117 that made it difficult for Nepal to reach the final and qualify for the Division 3.

Argentina and Cayman Islands will play the fifth-place playoff but both of them have been now been relegated to Division 5 while USA and Italy have been promoted to Division 3 and will compete for the title.

On Friday, Italy defeated Tanzania by 167 runs. They won all matches except the one against Nepal. USA beat Argentina by 196 runs.

USA won the toss and elected to bat first. Nepal made a change in the team that played Argentina bringing in Binod Das to replace Mehboob Alam. The live score is here.

Mehboob Alam bowls against Argentina. Photo by International Cricket Council

On Wednesday at Navile, Italy, when Argentine batsman Grant Dugmore edged Alam to Mahesh Chhetri, little did he know that he was a milestone wicket for the left-arm bowler. Mehboob went on to pick another wicket in his 63rd international match to take his total wicket tally to 101.

“I will consider myself very fortunate if I became the first bowler to take 100 wickets in one-dayers for Nepal,” Mehboob, who only wanted two more wickets to reach the milestone, had said before leaving for Italy. “When I began my international cricket, I never thought I would ever reach near this milestone. But after playing Emerging Nations’ Tournaments in 2003, my wickets count went high and then I thought it could be possible.”

He had 18 wickets from 12 matches before the Emerging Nations Tournaments, but he took 15 wickets in five matches, including 8/23 against Maldives, that boosted his morale.

The turning point of his bowling career came in 2008 in Jersey when he took all 10 wickets in a match against Mozambique — an extraordinary performance that had never happened in ICC sanctioned one-day cricket match before.

Roy Dias, Nepal’s coach for a decade, considered Mehboob’s performance as a big achievement. “This is big achievement for Nepal,” he said.

Mehboob Alam. Photo by International Cricket Council.

And, Mehboob also leads the table for highest number of wides bowled by Nepali bowler — 112 which is much higher than 59 by Binod Das.

To add to these records, he also has top three bowling performances in a match for his country and besides, he is a hard-hitting batsman who has scored 904 runs with an average of 21. His career hit of boundaries is 119, out of which 18 are sixes.

“Batting is a plus-point to my cricket,” he says. “If I had not been a batsman, I would have been out of the team long ago.” Mehboob modeled himself on former Pakistani great Wasim Akram and is a crowd favorite in Nepal. Such is a support to him by home crowd that the curator of TU Cricket Ground — the main cricket ground of the nation named an end on him.

Photo by International Cricket Council.

With Anil Mandal (60), Paras Khadka (53 not out), Pradeep Airee (38 not out) and Mahesh Chhetri (36) all contributed for Nepal´s victory that was registered with 104 balls remaining.

Argentina posted 193/8 in 50 overs against Nepal in the ongoing Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 4 at Navile, Italy on Wednesday.

Nepal needs to score 194 in 50 overs to win the match and to continue the hopes of reaching the final and qualifying for the WCL Div 3.

Argentina won the toss and elected to bat first. Opening pacers restricted runs while taking wickets frequently as Argentina went down to 47/4.

But then onwards, it recovered playing Nepali spinners swiftly – albeit not aggressively scoring. The patience gave them handsome rewards towards the end of the innings as they could afford some lofty shots.

A Ferguson was particularly aggressive hitting four sixes and seven fours in his way to 83 off 73 balls before falling in the last ball of the innings. His brilliant innings ensured that Argentina reach a commendable total against good Nepali bowling.

R Siri scored 32 off 90 balls, A Dugmore 22 off 23 and L Paterlini 13 off 9 as Argentina thwarted Nepali hopes of bowling it out early.

On Tuesday, Nepal lost to Tanzania by 9 runs failing to chase 117.

After a long gap, Mehboob Alam was asked to open with Anil Mandal and the pair were out without scoring as Nepal were bundled out for 108 in 44.1 overs chasing 117 for victory.

For Nepal, vice-captain Gyanendra Malla topscored with 41, which five of the players did not open their account including Sharad Vesawkar, Binod Das and Amrit Bhattarai. Shakti Gauchan scored two.

Rahul Biswokarma, who earlier bowled a superb spell of 5/18, and Basant Regmi tried to push Nepal to victory but their last-wicket partnership ended in 16 runs. Rahul got bowled on 7 while Basant remained unbeaten on 7.

Paras Khadka (24) and Mahesh Chhetri (16) scored a few runs but it was not enough as Tanzania rode on splendid bowling performances of Kiseto (3/19), Rehmtullah (3/25) and Nassoro (2/18).

Earlier, Nepal elected to bowl first and restricted Tanzania for 117 in 47.3 overs with spinner Rahul Biswokarma being the pick of the bowler with 5/18.

Biswokarma, who was introduced late in the innings, missed a hattrick chance but will be on for another chance when he plays next match as he took last two Tanzanian wickets in successive balls.

Basant Regmi supported him well with 2/23 in his 10 overs while Mehboob Alam, Amrit Bhattarai and Paras Khadka each grabbed a wicket. Although Binod Das (0/9) and Shakti Gauchan (0/9) went wicket-less, they dried up runs.

For Tanzania, who had a slow but steady start, opener Khalifa scored 46 off 82 balls with three fours and two sixes while Nassoro got 18 with a six. Other contributions came from Kiongozi (12) and Abdallah (11).

Nepal will compete against Hong Kong and Maldives in Group D for qualification to play against seeded teams in men’s competition. Malaysia, Singapore and China are in Group C and the top two teams from each group will join Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan in the knock-out competition.

In women’s competition, Nepal has been placed alongside Bangladesh, Hong Kong and Japan in Group B. Group A comprises of Pakistan, Thailand, China and Singapore with four teams qualifying for semifinals.

In men’s, Nepal begins the league round with Maldives on November 20 and plays Hong Kong on November 22. If Nepal qualifies to the quarter-finals, they meet either Sri Lanka or Afghanistan.

The quarterfinals will be held on November 23 and 24 while the semifinals are scheduled for November 25. The final and the third-place playoff will be held on November 26.

In women’s, Nepal plays Japan on opening match on November 12 before taking on Hong Kong the next day. On November 17, Nepal takes on Bangladesh. Semifinals and final are scheduled for November 18 and 19.

After asking Italy to bat first, Nepal bowled it out for lowly 71 in 33.1 overs. Nepal’s chase was however not on the par with the bowling as it lost five wickets while reaching the target in 25 overs.

Mehboob Alam hit a six to end the match in Nepal’s favor. He was not out on 16 along with Sharad Vesawkar (10) while top-order failed to cope with the bouncing astro-turf.

In-form Anil Mandal and Gyanendra Malla were both out without scoring while Mahesh Chhetri (19), Shakti Gauchan (12) and Paras Khadka (9) were other batsmen out. H Jayasena took two wickets for Italy.

Earlier, in a rain-affected match which was reduced to 40-over-a-side, Nepal elected to field first and the bowlers claimed regular wickets to bowl out the hosts for a lowly total.

Amrit Bhattarai was the pick of Nepali bowlers taking 3 wickets for 8 runs in 6.1 overs while Paras Khadka, Shakti Gauchan and Basant Regmi each took two wickets. Binod Das took a wicket.

Only four Italian batsmen reached double digit, H Jayasena (16), P Petricola (15), H Patrizi (13) and A Northcote (10).

In the other match of the day, USA defeated Tanzania by 10 wickets completing a chase to 129 in 13th over.

Nepal scheduled match against USA on Monday will not be played for the playing conditions of the event states that all teams should play equal number of matches. On Sunday, the match between Argentina and Cayman Islands was abandoned and only that match will be replayed with all three matches of the first day going as the no result.

There are ten countries participating in the men’s competition and eight in the women’s, according to Asian Cricket Council (ACC).

In men, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Singapore and Sri Lanka will compete along with Nepal. The match-schedule has yet to be finalized though in the men’s event it is likely that Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan will be seeded and await to play the best of the other teams that come through the preliminary round.

In women, Nepal will participate alongside Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Pakistan, Singapore and Thailand

The Asiad in Guangzhou is the biggest Games so far, with 42 disciplines. The Games run from November 12 to 27 2010 and close to 8000 athletes and over 4500 officials will be taking part.

“This is cricket’s first entry into the Asian Games and it is a tremendous opportunity to bring cricket to a new audience and showcase it on a non-traditional platform where millions of new fans will be watching. Guangzhou has done marvelously in creating a state of the art facility for the cricket event and we hope that the countries taking part enjoy being part of an Asian sporting community in such a high-profile event. Winning a medal is something the players will all remember for a long time, the experience of taking part will also be cherished,” ACC quoted its Chief Executive Syed Ashraful Huq as saying.

Paras Khadka pulls against USA in the World Cricket League Division 4 match. Photo by International Cricket Council.

Nepal was 51/2 with in-form Anil Mandal on 30 and captain Paras Khadka on 10 when the match was halted by rainfall and finally called off for the day without a result. The teams will play a fresh rematch on Monday.

Two other matches of the day were also called off due to rainfall.

At Ovale di Rastignano of Pianora, USA won the toss and decided to bowl first. Mahesh Chhetri and Shakti Gauchan fell early.

Mahesh failed to cut a rising delivery from Kevin Darlington in the third over and was out for four caught at third slip by captain Steve Massiah. Shakti was also undone by sharply bouncing delivery by Usman Shuja for naught.

The ball kissed the gloves of Shakti, who was trying to defend off backfoot, and wicket-keeper Orlando Baker grabbed an easy catch to make it 11/2 in four overs.

Much needed resistance came from Anil, who had scored two half-centuries in warm-up matches, and Paras. The duo played patiently rotating strikes and taking no chances until they were settled well. After nine overs, Nepal was 23/2 but from then onwards with rain threatening to spoilsport, they accelerated and scored 28 runs in next five overs to take Nepal in a good looking position.

Nepal will now meet Italy on Sunday.