Kathmandu- R-2 (Birgunj) made it to the semi finals of the senior national cricket tournament 2015 despite suffering a huge 145 runs loss at the hands of Tribhuwan Army Club at Engineering Ground, Pulchowk on Monday.
Birgunj finished second on Group A behind Tribhuwan Army and ahead of R-5 (Nepalgunj) on net run rate by a margin. Birgunj and Nepalgunj, both had three wins from five matches, however, Birgunj’s run rate of -0.143 proved superior than that of Nepalgunj’s -0.201 and they progressed to the semi finals.
In today’s match, Anil Mandal’s second century of the tournament propelled Army’s total to 262/9 in allotted overs. Army then restricted Birgunj to 117 runs in 26.2 overs.
Mandal scored 113 runs off 146 balls that consisted of 10 fours. Bikram Sov scored a quickfire 53 not out off 43 balls. Ramnaresh Giri, Yashin Hawari and Irshad Ahmed picked two wickets each for Birgunj.
Bikram Sov returned with the ball picking four wickets and so did Rahul BK as Birgunj were all out for 117 runs in 26.2 overs. Amrit Shrestha scored 36 runs off 45 balls while Anil Shah scored 43 runs for Birgunj.
Anil Mandal and Bikram Sov were jointly declared the player of the match.
