KATHMANDU:
Republica Online
Region No 3 (Kathmandu) pulled off a consecutive victory in the Pepsi Standard Chartered National One-day Cricket Tournament on Thursday.
The three time champion Kathmandu thrashed Region No 2 (Prime Life Birgunj) by 58 runs at the Pulchowk Cricket Ground. This was the consecutive loss for Birgunj in the tournament.
Veteran Rikesh Lama proved his experience and completed his five wickets haul to restrict Birgunj at 181/10 in 30.5 overs. Birgunj were chasing 240 runs for victory .
Man-of-the-match Lama, who was captaining Kathmandu after skipper Paras Khadka and many other players of the region joined Nepal APF club, bowled 6.5 overs and gave away 33 runs to take five wickets. Pramod Basnet and Rajesh Pulami took two wickets each while Jeeba Lal Bhattarai claimed a wicket to support their skipper.
Opener Naresh Raj Giri top-scored for Birgunj with 42 runs off 46 balls while wicketkeeper batsman Shiva Kumar Tandukar scored 35 runs off 23 balls.
Earlier, Kathmandu won the toss and elected to bat first. Kathmandu were all out for 239 runs off 49.2 overs as opener Suman Shrestha scored 52 runs off 87 balls. Shrestha got life twice at 29 and 37 during the innings. As Suman Uday and Avay Paudel got out for 14 and 1 respectively, Shrestha produced a 77-run partnership with Rajesh Pulami (36 runs off 52 balls). Rupesh Shrivastav and Sudip Sharma contributed 23 runs each to guide Kathmandu to the total of 239 runs.
Jitendra Mukhiya and Mohammad Hassim Ansari claimed two wickets each while Jatta Shankar Sarraf, Bibek Dali, Sameer Thapa and Naresh Raj Giri took a wicket each for Birgunj.
Region No 1 (Biratnagar) outclassed Region No 5 (Nepalgunj) by 132 runs at the TU Cricket Ground. This was the first win for Biratnagar as they had lost to Region No 4 (Bhairahawa) in the opening match while this was consecutive loss for Nepalgunj.
Sunil Bista played a captain´s innings and scored 94 runs off 99 balls to take Biratnagar at 252/10 in 49.5 overs. Bista was caught and bowled by Rahul Silwal to deny century.
Bista played 53-run partnership with Unil Shrestha (13) and 97-run partnership with Manoj Mandal (54 runs off 63 balls) as Saddhab Akhtar (1) and Somesh Yadav (0) got out early. Nasir Ansari and Subendu Pandey took 3 wickets each to limit Biratnagar at 252.
In reply, Nepalgunj was all out for 120 runs in 28.3 overs. Sanjiv Baral and Ameet Dahal took 3 wickets each while Kundan Singh claimed two wickets to bundle out Nepalgunj. Captain Anupam Singh (38), Ansari (20) were the major contributors for Nepalgunj with bat.
