Kathmandu – Paschimanchal and APF entered into the finals of the first edition of Indian Ambassador’s Cricket Cup being held at TU Ground on Monday.
In the first match, Paschimanchal registered an easy victory of 6 wickets against Sudur Paschimanchal. Paschimanchal invited Sudur Paschimanchal to bat first after winning the toss.
Bijay Thapa with an exceptional bowling figure of 3 for 10, 2 wickets each from Lal Bahadur Adhikari and Rahul Kumar Vishwakarma and a wicket from Krishna Karki restricted Sudur Paschimanchal to the lowest score of 52 runs for 10 wickets in 16.2 overs.
Pradeep Airee(13) and Santosh Bhatt(13) were the only batsman to enter into double digit mark.
Chasing the target wasn’s easy as it seemed for Paschimanchal as they were at the score of 15 for 4. Subash Pradhan and Krishna Karki shared a 41 runs partnership for 5th wciket to guide the team to a comfortable victory. Pradhan scored 21 runs off 26 balls with three boundaries while Karki made 18 runs off 30 balls including two fours.
Chandra Saud and Santosh Bhatt grabbed two wickets each for Sudur Paschimanchal.
In the second and the final group stage match, APF pulled a huge victory over Madhya Paschimanchal by 176 runs.
APF opted to bat first after winning the toss and put up a huge score of 247 runs losing four wickets in 20 overs. Sharad Vesawkar was the pick player of the day as he struck an influential century in just 34 balls. Vesawkar who completed the half ton off just 21 balls later played an innings of 38 ball- 111 runs with remaining unbeaten. Vesawkar hit eight fours and nine big sixes.
Sanjay Shrestha 28 ball- 17 put up a first wicket partnership of 69 runs with Subash Khakurel. Khakurel(50 off 32 balls) and Vesawkar then had a 53 balls 111 runs partnership for second wicket. Khakurel later hit 72 off 48 balls including nine boundaries and a six. Shrestha shared two fours and two sixes. Dipendra Chaudhary also added 30 runs off 16 balls with two fours and two sixes to build a 49 runs partnership between Vesawkar for third wicket.
Siddhant Raj Shahi, Yogesh Bam and Anupam Singh picked up a wicket each for Madhya Paschimanchal.
In reply, Madhya Paschimanchal were bundled for only 71 runs in 16.5 overs. Subendu Pandey top scored 23 runs off 24 deliveries hitting two fours and a six. Rupesh Sharma added 19 runs off 32 balls with two fours.
Sunam Gautam grabbed 3 wickets conceding only 5 runs while Sharad Vesawkar picked up 2 wickets conceding 5 runs off 1.5 overs. Prithu Baskota claimed 2 wickets wile Paras Khadka and Basant Regmi shared wicket apiece for the winning side.
Paschimanchal and APF progressed to the finals of the tournament after finishing first from each group. The final match will be played tomorrow at TU Ground from 11:00 AM.
Cricnepal
