Leg-spinner Raj Kumar Pradhan bowled the best figure for the country to give hopes of victory for Nepal on the second day of the ongoing three-day ACC Fast Track Countries Tournament match against Singapore at the Indian Association Ground today.
Raj Kumar’s five wickets haul helped the team bowl out hosts for 167 in their first innings after declaring Nepal’s first innings at 229/8. On the second innings, Nepal is 91/1, a healthy lead of 153 runs, with opener Paresh Lohani still batting on 48.
Raj Kumar returned with figure of 5/59, the best by any Nepali bowler in the three-day matches, beating Binod Das’ 5/61 against UAE at Sharjah. He also became only the second bowler to take five wickets after Binod, who has done it twice, the other being 5/75 against Hong Kong in Hong Kong.
The second day ended after Paresh lay down on the ground due to tiredness. He was two runs short of his half-century. According to reports, he will bat on the third day and if he completes the half-century, he will become the first Nepali to score half-century in both innings. In the first innings, he topscored with 71.
Paresh added 78 with Kaniska Chaugai, who was caught off Rizwan after scoring 30 runs. Mahesh Chhettri is batting on 4.
Earlier, Nepal declared its first innings adding 23 runs to overnight score batting 4.3 overs.
Singapore’s innings began with Glen Meyer, the son of Nepali team’s liaison officer, returning on the fourth over for duck by captain Binod Das. Sajith Sivanathan (36) and Christopher Janik (31) added 65 for Singapore before they went out in space of six runs – each being victim of Raj Kumar and other spinner Raju Basnyat. Raj Kumar then started claiming wickets at regular intervals to send them 124/8 while Raju added two more to his name to take his tally to three.
At the end of Day II, Nepal has claimed 10 bonus points compared to Singapore’s 7.5.